June 20, 2006

Dear Nutjobs,

Recently I found a post on Karl “King” Wenclas’ blog from September 7, 2005 taking a crack at me after I quit his organization. This wasn’t a surprise; as with the mafia, when leaving the ULA one should frequently look over one’s shoulder.

Karl claims I like the ULA’s “most egregious enemies.” One must understand that “enemies” here could mean at any given time, oh, nearly anyone not within the ULA’s membership ranks.

Maybe I took my position as Ombudsman too seriously, and attempting to communicate with people rather than just spout the ULA manifesto at them was my mistake. Maybe I failed to muster enough passion about defending “literature”; which might have been because I don’t give a shit about “literature.”

Comparing me to Rodney King, Karl says I hate to take sides, that I want “to get along with everyone.” However, my black sense of humor, my foolish clinging to logic and reason, my unwillingness to grow a brush mustache -- these flaws made me a bad fit for the ULA, not my tendency to be civil to people.

Most offensive, Karl says I long to “join” the likes of McSweeney’s, the publications of which I find repellent (how he could have missed gathering as much during our nights of drunken ranting around Philadelphia I don’t know). And, worse, he implies my moving to New York -- done for personal reasons -- was to facilitate becoming part of such a bourgeois milieu. Gag me.

That kind of charge leveled against me in particular is ironic; long before quitting, what I had come to think was embarrassing and stupid about the ULA was this growing perception (only from the outside, I hoped) that here were desperate people who themselves desperately wanted to be published authors and who thought that being in the ULA was actually a route to that.

I’ve always had (mostly) good things to say about Karl, have kept his confidences and have defended him to some detractors in private. In fact, the fun of hanging out with Karl is the only reason one should join the ULA.

It is possible to linger on in a organization one doesn’t care for only because you enjoy the company of some of its members. If the divine rulers of the ULA can’t grasp that kind of complex thinking, so be it.

Of the member types that Karl identifies in his post -- “The Cynic,” “The Friend,” “The Conservative,” for example -- there is one he left out: The Dingleberry. The Dingleberry doesn’t have the balls to actually join the ULA but has no problem using any ULA event to promote his or her work. Or this person may join on paper, but will in all other ways distance him or herself from the organization. Several years after quitting, there is still a link to the ULA on my website; can Karl’s active Dingleberries say the same?

Love,

Will von Ratblood

 

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