Alan Horn's diary

March 19, 2008

The presidential candidate Barack Obama has distanced himself from his pastor over the latter's expression of some commonsense liberal views, comparing them curiously to the embarrassing racial and ethnic slurs of an older white relative.

America is not racist. America is not imperialist. Just keep telling yourself that, America.

March 18, 2008

My name hasn’t surfaced in the tabloids yet, but it’s only a matter of time now that Ted Pedersen has come forward with an account of his own role in keeping the McGreeveys’s marriage alive. I wonder if they ever told him he was only called in as my replacement. They begged me to stay, but by then my relationship with Michelle Paterson had grown too serious. Perhaps it is just as well.

The Spitzers were well aware of my services, too. They even had me over for drinks at 985 Fifth Avenue a couple of times back in 2001, I think it was. But while Silda seemed quite affectionate and open, Eliot sat there staring at the furniture and biting his lip. The consequences--not just for the couple personally, but for our state--of Eliot’s apparent preference for high-priced trysts with twenty-two-year-olds over a purely pro bono arrangement with a slightly more mature but no less desirable participant are now plain as daylight.

March 13, 2008

Several people, speaking to me privately, have expressed a certain apprehension about David Paterson’s promotion to the highest office of our state. They wonder how someone who is legally blind can be up to doing whatever it is that governors do. Aren’t there a lot of important papers to look at, they ask? What if there’s a natural disaster and he is obliged to come and inspect the damage? Won’t he just look silly being led around and shown things he can’t see properly?

I reply that there is no reason for concern. A governor can easily ask an aide to read him any important papers he finds lying on his desk. “What if he doesn’t notice them there?” someone unacquainted with the workings of statecraft might ask. The answer is he can ask another aide, or even the same one if that one's not too busy reading, to keep an eye out for important papers lying around that the governor might need to attend to.

As for viewing disaster areas, it is well known that governors who lose their sight develop a keener sense of hearing in compensation. So although Governor Paterson may not be able to take in much visually on such occasions, he will be sure to overhear many things that a sighted governor would fail to catch, and which may well give him a better picture of his constituents’ concerns than anything said to him directly. He can also be expected to show a special sensitivity to the issue of noise pollution, which is a big one for our state.

March 10, 2008

Eliot Spitzer’s real crimes--wielding the slave-driver’s whip against the transit workers for daring to withhold their labor-power, pushing to keep people labeled “sex offenders” locked up long after the end of their sentences, and on and on--only served in this reactionary society to advance his career. Now that sinister career is undone over a piece of harmless fun, and one can’t even gloat about it.

March 3, 2008

Sometimes I wonder about these people who are running for president. What do they get out of it? What are they really trying to accomplish?

I don’t know why we can’t get answers to these questions. I realize that it seems like the papers are filled with nothing else these days. But most of us know better than to believe anything they print on this subject. So the mystery remains.

February 26, 2008

All the current presidential candidates say they are for “change,” but this is a vague and empty slogan that tells us little. What kind of change are they talking about, exactly?

There is change for the better, and there is change for the worse. Normally, of course, we welcome the former and try to avoid the latter. But at certain times, such as in the middle of a lengthy public function, we are so bored out of our fucking minds that we long for a change of any sort, no matter how dire.

This is the kind of rigorous, far-reaching analysis we need so badly these days, and yet so seldom find in the mainstream, corporate-owned media.

February 20, 2008

News that Fidel Castro has stepped down, as the capitalist press howls for counterrevolution.

So out of all the sinister methods tried by the CIA to get rid of him--snipings, bombings, druggings, poisonings, the famous exploding cigar--the one that finally worked was simple attrition.

February 18, 2008

The Democratic Party primaries have been putting me in mind of politics in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

The chief minister of Uttar Pradesh is an untouchable woman. Aside from being the first of her caste and sex to have reached this office anywhere in the country, she is perhaps best known for putting up statues of herself and throwing ludicrously extravagant parties for her birthday at public expense.

The ever-worsening conditions of untouchables in the state, which is one of the poorest and most socially backward in India, have not diminished her popularity among them. It’s as though, despairing of general upliftment, they’ve settled on the obscene aggrandizement of one among them. The statues, the billboards, the diamonds and feasts and rare bouquets for her birthday only enhance the chief minister’s appeal in their eyes. Having long given up on anyone using power on their behalf, much less their partaking of it themselves, their highest wish is merely to see one of their own enjoy it to the fullest.

So it is with supporters of the low-caste candidates in the Democratic race. No one really expects that the actual policies of a President Obama would do anything to lighten the oppression of black people in this country, or that a second Clinton presidency would do any more for women than the first one did.

The pathetic hope is that simply having one or the other of them raised to such an office will in itself give his or her respective section a little more dignity.

February 17, 2008

Told my analyst, Dr. F., about an entry I was thinking of posting here today.

I was going to reference the arrest this morning of a man charged with the recent meat-cleaver attack on two Upper East Side therapists that left one dead and the other near death. Then I was planning to write something like: “Police say the suspect spent fifty minutes hacking up the victims, then checked his watch and said with a sneer, ‘Let’s pick up here next time.’”

Dr. F. (after a pause): Is that all?

Me: Yes. (two minutes of silence) I know you’re thinking this is about yesterday.

Dr. F.: What about yesterday?

Me: When I complained about the way you always say “Let’s pick up here next time” at the end of every session.

Dr. F.: (consulting notes) And I asked you why you felt that way, and you said it sounded like a cliché.

Me: Not just a cliché. You say it every time. Whether I’m at a point that’s worth picking up at or not.

Dr. F.: And that makes you angry.

Me: Yes, because you don’t really mean it. It’s insincere. It’s just something you say. (pause) But that’s not what it’s about.

Dr. F.: What what is about?

Me: The entry. Or the hostility expressed in the entry.

Dr. F.: So what is it about?

Me: This is what I think, anyway, that it’s about the way, each time after I tell you about an entry I’m working on, you always wait a few seconds and then say, “Is that all?”

Dr. F.: (writing) Yes?

Me: And I’m not sure if that irritates me because, even though I know it’s against the rules, I’m always hoping for a chuckle, or because that phrase Is that all? relates, you know, to my toilet-training memories.

Dr. F.: That’s interesting. Let’s pick up here next time.

February 14, 2008

Hopefully the absurd, racist campaign against two Dominican baseball players for taking part in their other national sport--cockfighting--has fizzled out. However one may feel about the spectacle of two small creatures tearing each other apart, at least those who enjoy it are not in league with the state to force their tastes on the rest of us like the sinister Humane Society and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

I have never been to a cockfight myself, but the vivid description of one in the Times the other day certainly aroused my interest. The birds are equipped with sharp plastic spikes on their feet to impale each other with, and if neither one is mortally wounded within fifteen minutes they call it a draw. If only baseball would take similarly assertive measures to keep things moving.

February 12, 2008

Now that the Maharishi has passed away, as he did last Tuesday at the age of 91, I suppose it will do no harm to reveal his mantra.

He sold it to me at Monaco many years ago in a moment of dire need, having come up short for a rather large drinks order he’d been stuck with. He explained that the mantra had been given to him by his teacher, Guru Dev, after thirteen years of intensive spiritual training. Naturally he made me swear never to disclose it to anyone.

Reluctant as I am to break such a promise, the fact is that while I’ve always meant to work on developing my consciousness, I never seem to be able to find the time for it. Consequently I’ve never had an occasion to use the Maharishi’s mantra. This seems like a terrible waste given that it contains immense spiritual energy and therefore is probably worth more than the thirty-odd francs I paid for it.

So I’m offering it here, free of charge and no doubt at considerable risk to the progress of my soul, to anyone who might be able to make better use of it than I: “Owa tagu siam.”

February 7, 2008

Perhaps the tragedy of Heath Ledger’s early death will not have been entirely in vain if it brings some attention to the dangers of prescription-drug misuse. These medications can be harmful if taken in the wrong combinations. It’s sad to think that all Ledger had to do was to swap out the diazepam with some Ambien and he would still be with us. I’ve taken a similar regimen for years without any problem.

February 4, 2008

Barack Obama, one of the Democratic candidates for president, has been campaigning on the idea that there’s no more racism in America, or nearly none. We’re “ninety percent of the way” there, he estimates. That’s something I was certainly glad to hear, if a little surprised.

According to his recent book, the reason black people are ever more segregated, impoverished, undereducated, unemployed, and incarcerated is not racism, for the most part. Apparently it’s largely due to their own ignorance (or, “lack of emphasis on educational achievement”), sexual promiscuity (“the collapse of the two-parent black household”), and shiftlessness (“conservatives--and Bill Clinton--were right about welfare”).

February 2, 2008

Many people have been asking me for my “take” on the Democratic primaries.

There are two major candidates left in the race. While I haven’t finished reading the entire article, here are a couple of things that strike me right off the bat.

I hope it will make no difference that one candidate has the unusual given name of “Hilary.” There are many men called Hilary and even some in public life, albeit mainly in Britain, like the Labour politician Hilary Benn. In any case, the candidate surely did not choose his name, and certainly should not be held any less manly on account of it.

With the other candidate it’s not his given name, unusual as it is in its own way, that gives concern so much as his surname: O’Bama. There is still a great deal of prejudice against the Irish in the minds of too many people in this country, and I hope the candidate’s ethnic background will play no part in their decision.

January 29, 2008

While I don’t favor any candidate from either capitalist party, the news that Rudolph Giuliani will soon be withdrawing is good to hear because of a peculiar domestic disturbance he’s been causing. Whenever his face appears on television, Eli Weasel--my pet ferret--gives out a high-pitched whine, flings himself violently and repeatedly against the walls of his tank, and urinates into his water cup.

The violent and repeated flinging, of course, is a normal part of ferret behavior which Eli engages in all the time, but the rest is worrying. I can never figure out whether this reaction is due to the former mayor’s outburst against ferrets and their keepers in a 1999 radio broadcast, or whether--to the contrary--it’s some kind of mating ritual.

But somehow I feel the latter explanation to be more likely. Come to think of it, Eli behaves in a similar way whenever Eliot Spitzer comes on.

January 25, 2008

Further details emerged today on the circumstances surrounding the death of Heath Ledger, who was either this generation’s James Dean or this week’s Brad Renfro.

No one wants to be found dead in one’s apartment of a possible overdose, but if it should ever happen to me, I certainly hope it isn’t by my “massage therapist.”

January 24, 2008

Continue to follow the Nixzmary Brown murder trial. In court yesterday the attorney for her stepfather produced in his client’s defense a mug presented to him by the seven-year-old victim bearing the words “World’s Greatest Dad.”

How can the judging for this title be so scandalously lax? I never considered entering myself--for one thing I am not a dad, to my knowledge at any rate--but now I wonder whether despite this fact I might not actually have a shot.

January 23, 2008

The death by violence of little Nixzmary Brown is in the news again with her stepfather on trial for her murder. Such cases call to mind the dangers of leaving the youngest and most vulnerable among us to the mercy of their parents and guardians.

Think of all the creeps, morons, psychos, bigots, and bullies one meets on a daily basis. Now reflect that nearly every one of these may be a parent. People you wouldn’t trust to look after your goldfish for a long weekend are not just permitted but required to keep a developing human life under their near-absolute care.

Even with kind, well-informed parents who do their best, the family is a notorious hothouse for every sort of emotional and psychological difficulty. As the poet Philip Larkin wrote in lines that will surely continue to be passed on to the posterity they would avert:

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

Which is one solution. A better one, like the solutions to most social problems, will have to wait until after the revolution: communal childcare.

January 21, 2008

News the other day that Bobby Fischer, the former chess grandmaster, had died, supposedly of kidney failure.

My own part in this was small. Credit is shared with all my fellow conspirators worldwide, chief among them Arnie Blattstein, Shlomo Roth, Izzie “the Moyel” Meyrowitz, Rabbi Samuel “Boom-Boom” Pearlstein, Boris “the Spazz” and Garry K., Lenny Cohn, Raffi Josefson, Allison Shapiro, Mel “Meshuggeneh” Friedman, Alan Dershowitz, and Special Agent Double Chai. Mazel tovs all around.

January 20, 2008

An article in the Times last week reported that an Indian company has been manufacturing a new, super-compact, inexpensive automobile. It’s called the “Tata Ipod” on account of its small size and severely limited durability.

This may seem like good news, but apparently there’s a problem. The earth’s ecology can’t sustain mass car-driving in both the first and third worlds.

The solution is to impoverish people here in this country so deeply that basic transportation becomes an impossible luxury. Fortunately the capitalists are already working on this, as the impending economic crisis shows.

But this plan may not be necessary. As anyone who’s ever traveled within India by road understands, increasing access to the automobile is the surest and quickest way to reduce the population there. Those new drivers won't be driving long.

City traffic in India is quite safe, being almost completely immobile, but once you get into countryside the situation changes. On my last trip I had to repeatedly remind my driver of the fact that life is precious. I began to wonder whether this wasn’t a new concept to him since, as a Hindu, he had so many to spare.

Of course, the daredevil nature of our journey wasn’t all his fault. Indian highways are frugally equipped with just one lane, so you’re forced to drive directly into oncoming traffic. If you swerve too soon, the other car will naturally seize the advantage to drive you off the road, and vice versa. So cross-country road travel becomes a continual series of head-on near-collisions.

I recommend going by rail, if possible. The railway system is excellent and the trains only infrequently crash into each other or tip over.

January 16, 2008

“This is clearly unacceptable,” said Patricia Lancaster, the New York City Buildings commissioner, of conditions at the site of the Trump SoHo condominium that had led to eleven violations and finally on Monday afternoon to a partial collapse in which a worker fell forty-two stories to his death.

An hour later Donald Trump was arrested in his office at Trump Plaza and taken to a nearby district courthouse, where he was arraigned on charges of industrial murder.

At least that’s what I assumed from the statement quoted above, until I read the rest of the article and found no such thing. It said only that the Trump organization was referring questions to its contractor, Bovis Lend Lease.

Bovis, let us recall, is the management company that entrusted the complicated and dangerous demolition of the Deutsche Bank building, which had been contaminated by debris from the neighboring World Trade Center, to a mysterious, apparently mob-connected subcontractor with no record of any previous work whatsoever. Two firefighters died there last August. In this building filled with flammable chemicals, there was no working standpipe and commonsense fire-safety measures were never put in practice. Today's Times has an article on the shocking safety record of Bovis's (mob-connected) subcontractor at the Trump site.

In the year ending September 2006, 18 construction workers in this city were killed on the job. The following year this figure went up to 29, and the year after that it was 43.

Officials will obviously say what they need to. Anyone can see that homicidally unsafe working conditions are clearly acceptable to them and the class they serve.

January 6, 2008

The Times had an article the other day on an alleged current fad for the ancient yogic practice of nasal irrigation, or pouring water up your nose. This disgusting activity, said to help with allergies and colds, is performed using a small vessel called a neti pot. You stick the spout up one nostril and the water runs out the other one.

What the article leaves out is the fact that there are many levels of yogic practice, with a method of nasal hygiene appropriate to each one. The neti pot is well suited for raw initiates and those in the intermediate stages of study. Those of us who have gone deeper dispense with external aids, learning to cleanse the nostrils--those gateways of the breath--using nothing but our own bodies. My own practice, for example, makes use of the tip of the index finger. Those at the very highest grades even eat the results.

January 4, 2008

When I heard the news the other day that Benazir Bhutto had been killed, my second or third thought was: which member of the Bhutto family are they going to put in now? Two days later I read a headline: “Bhutto’s husband, son to lead party.”

Benazir herself had of course been put in after her father was hanged by the military in 1979. Just as in India when Nehru died they put in his daughter, Indira, and when Indira was killed they put in her son Rajiv, and when he was killed in turn they put in his Italian-born wife, wrapped in a sari. That’s how these Eastern dynasties work. Good thing it’s not like that here in the United States, where you would never have two people from the same family holding or seeking the presidency.

If Ms. Bhutto, or Pinky as I called her, had a tragic flaw, it was her lack of thrift. Had she and her husband not squandered the money they stole during her first administration, she would not have been forced to seek power a second time in 1993, and recently for yet a third time. This was a clear case of returning to the cookie jar one too many times. One and a half billion dollars, carefully managed, can be enough for a couple to retire on, even comfortably. With budgeting, avoidance of credit-card debt, and a little common sense, this story might have had quite a different ending.