Lenny Curry’s plausible denial

@Jaxonpool 3/7/15, No. 98

This letter is no joke, although that doesn’t mean it isn’t funny. But don’t get me wrong, Mr. Editor. Things aren’t what they appear to be, and they’ll get turned around by the end of this letter, in the name of plausible deniability, or deniable plausibility, or whatever.

So, let’s be clear here about Lenny Curry. He is THE VOICE I listen to. There’s no reason why plausible deniability, or deniable plausibility, or whatever, can’t work for a while here too for him, not that I’m saying he did it. And what is it that he didn’t do? Well, that’s the point. He didn’t not do anything. Wrong, that is. Only a LIBERAL wouldn’t understand this. You’re not a LIBERAL, are you?

I attended an editorial staff meeting of the satirical magazine Jaxonpool in Jacksonville this morning. It started at 9 am. With the exception of Keyser Söze, all of the Jax Scriblerians were seated around the table in the conference room at the CoRK Arts District, and we were discussing whom to endorse for mayor. Everyone there had written off Alvin Brown because, supposedly, he failed to provide strong leadership with regard to the Human Rights Ordinance (Give Me Your Dogmatic). Me? I’d never written him in.

The Human Rights Ordinance is the kind of topic that gets discussed when you get a bunch of LIBTARDS together in the same room. Of course, I was the only sane one present, their token right-thinking conservative patriotic American. I stay only because someone has to remain in the room to speak truth to maggots.

There is only one thing — one thing only! — upon which we have all agreed. That was about how terrible the January massacre was of the twelve people at the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris. After that, we all wore Je suis Charlie buttons. It’s just terrible when you can’t make fun of people without getting shot.

By 9:30, everyone but me was stating their positions for endorsing Bill Bishop for mayor. They all were repeating the same tired argument: Bishop speaks forthrightly about issues, has a good grasp of the facts, has a lot of experience in city government, and has gained the support of the Northeast Florida LGBT Leadership PAC.

The LGTB endorsement reminds me of that joke about ‘How many LIBERALS does it take to screw in a light bulb?’ Answer: I’m not even sure how you fit two LIBERAL men into a light bulb.

Then the subject of the mysterious white supremacist mailings came up. That’s when the staff’s two strumpets broke out into a catfight. Mary Chudleigh called them obscenity that was arriving almost daily in her mailbox. “They are SMUT,” she declared with indignation. “Political pornography! It is repulsive, and I don’t like it!”

“If you think that THAT’s pornography,” chirped Eliza Haywood, “you haven’t been on the Internet lately. I’m so thankful net neutrality has been upheld. That means there’ll still be lots of pornography. Women should be able to revel in sexual pleasure too. Polymorphous perversity is ours to enjoy. These are our bodies to relish. I could show you some things that would make 50 Shades of Grey look like something you could read to your grandmother.”

“Your grandmother, maybe,” Mary retorted in a disdainful tone, “but not mine. If your grandmother’s anything like you, she’s an airhead. You could read the Marquis de Sade to your grandmother, and she’d think it was quaintly amusing. Such things turn women into the objects of men’s gaze and so are demeaning.”

“Dried up old Prude!” Eliza shot back. “Go read your Mary Astell!”

“Girls! Girls! Please!” interrupted Samuel Pepys. “Let us please maintain decorum. Let’s be polite. And please don’t forget that some of the things I wrote in my day were considered quite racy. That’s why I had to write my diaries in code.”

“Of course you had to write in code. You were afraid your wife would see it,” Mary fired back. “Who wants to read about an old fart groping young women. Yuck! You’re a walking billboard for misogyny. I don’t know why we allow a pig like you to even sit at this table with us.” 

“This tasteless bickering is hurting my ears!” moaned Farinelli, the staff’s only trans person, if the term trans can even be applied to a castrato. He’s a gender bender. Do you want to know what I’d like to do to gender benders? I’LL TELL YOU WHAT I’D LIKE TO DO!

“All that matters is art!” yammered Farinelli. “I must keep my mind pristine for music. How else can I pick the best songs on YouTube. My aesthetic sense is being blunted.”

“Shut up, you little twit!” said Mr. YouTube Spectator. An animal rights activist, Mr. YouTube Spectator promotes ‘personhood’ status for higher-order creatures, very probably because, as a bear, or a dog, or whatever he is, he considers himself to be one. “Just because you learned how to make a YouTube playlist doesn’t mean you know the slightest thing about music. Why don’t you ever select country music videos? This is Jacksonville, for Christ’s sake.”

“Country music? Over my dead body!” vowed Farinelli. He then haughtily sniffed.

Trying to calm the tension, Violent Crawley interjected, “No one really knows who’s sending the mailers.” For the last three years, Crawley’s been trying to land a job at Folio Weekly. “As an objective news reporter, I must withhold judgment until solid evidence surfaces. Therefore, I can’t report that Curry’s responsible. Until proof turns up, I must contribute to the conspiracy of silence.”

“A conspiracy of silence?” wondered Jonathan Swift’s ghost out loud. “Oh, my! I’m sure you know what THAT calls for! A satire! And I’m just your man, er, I mean, spirit, to write it. A Modest Proposal, Battel of the Books, Gulliver’s Travels, it’s been almost three hundred years, but I’m ready to write again.” 

“Oh, God, not another satire!” complained Mr. YouTube Spectator. “Somebody shoot that guy before he can pick up his quill.”

“We can’t!” said Dr. Tristan Voltaire, Ph.D., this magazine’s effete publisher. He also is the head of the local ‘Warren for President’ chapter. “We can’t, because he’s already dead.”

Then, from out of someone’s iPhone came the eerie, disembodied, Siri-like voice of The Witipedist. The Witipedist is an app for creating Wikipedia entries exploring Jacksonville topics. “I’d be happy to create a Wikipedia entry for the mysterious mailings,” intoned the personal, or should I say impersonal, assistant and knowledge navigator. “It would be labeled, ‘The Mysterious White Supremacist Mailings the Curry Campaign Is Sending out.'”

So, do you see what happens when you get a bunch of Jacksonville LIBERALS together sitting around a table? Even the app agrees with them. Their cartoonish absurdity becomes a little hard to take for a common-sensical person such as myself. What’s worse, they all assumed they knew, most definitely, that it was the Curry campaign sending out the mailings.

So, no surprise! they all wanted to rethink whether they should go ahead and endorse Bill Bishop or reconsider supporting Alvin Brown. They felt sorry for him, I guess. That’s what liberals do when it comes to black people. They can’t help it.

Not that I’m defending them, but consider who they are. They’re not only LIBERALS, but also whites who feel guilty about being white. Except of course for Mr. YouTube Spectator, who is a bear, or a dog, or something. And The Witipedist, who is an app, and Jonathan Swift’s ghost, and he’s not even alive. But then there’s Ottobah Cugoano, the affirmative action case, the angry black man nobody should’ve taught to read, the hot-headed type that’s ready to riot if the government doesn’t give him a handout.

At this point Tristan Voltaire weighed in. “Should this race-baiting be allowed to stand?” he asked everyone at the table. “Shouldn’t we support Brown as a protest against this tactic? I feel we must take a stand against racism.”

So I, Lemule Blogiver — the only person that was present who is rational, meaning tough minded, realistic, and cool headed — couldn’t remain silent any longer. “What? I can’t believe this! Suddenly now we’re supposed to back this chimpanzee just because somebody’s expressing their right of free speech? What kind of an upside down world am I living in?”

My take on the mysterious mailings differed from everyone else’s, as anyone who knows me would expect. Here’s my take: when Brown gets pounded because he’s a Negro, that makes me wonder whether we should pound on him too, for the same reason. When so many issues exist to beat Brown up on, such as lack of leadership, doesn’t it just make sense to also beat him up for being a Negro?

So, I added, “What’s so wrong with trying to defeat Brown by putting out these little tin replicas of the Jim Crow past?” I was referring to the mailings. At home I maintain a collection of Jim Crow memorabilia. My favorites are the Golliwogs.

Everyone seated at the table glared at me. Ottobah called me a racist. I responded that I was no such thing. Most definitely, I am NOT a racist! Just because I think all black people are animals doesn’t make me a racist. “Sir, I am not a racist,” I said indignantly. 

Then Ottobah muttered something about “cognitive dissonance,” whatever the hell that means, uppity N—–, and the rest of them started smirking at me in that way Harvey Milk did that forced Dan White to shoot him.

When people smirk at me, that means they’re making fun of me, and I can’t be held responsible for what I do when THAT happens. So I calmly spoke my mind: “It’s time I stop beating around the bush with you f-#*king idiots! Not only should we not endorse Brown, we should do what needs to be done. We should go the ‘whole nine yards,’ call him what he is, a n—–, and be done with it. Do you know what I think? . I’LL TELL YOU WHAT I THINK!! . I think it’s time we put those people back in their place!”

I paused to collect my thought. Everyone at the table stopped smirking. Someone wondered aloud if I was carrying a concealed weapon. I said, “Don’t worry, it’s just Chekhov’s gun.” At that, they all seemed relieved — at least the gun was Anton Chekhov’s! What is it about LIBERALS, anyway: they hate guns except when they appear in the first act of a play.

Then I resumed my thought: “I hate to say it, but I think it’s time we got the robes out! I’ve still got mine somewhere at the back of my closet.” Like I said, someone has to speak truth to maggots.

That’s when things started getting wacky, because as soon as I finished speaking, Tristan called security, and I was escorted out of the building. It was 10 am. They’ll regret this: I’m the only reason why anyone reads their lousy magazine!. I AM Jaxonpool.. Je suis Jaxonpool.

I too have received the mysterious mailings depicting Brown in the ugliest possible terms, linking him to crime and rape. This sort of political rhetoric — connecting black males to rape and crime — has been effective in the past. After all, black males are scary creatures! They make good bogeymen. Remember Willie Horton? 

Mayoral candidate Lenny Curry denies having anything to do with the mailings. He denies it 1000%. And I believe him. Don’t you? His name’s not on them, so that should settle the matter. Therefore, who can deny Lenny’s denial? 

It must be the Brown campaign that’s sending the mailers, to get sympathy from LIBERALS like the Jax Scriblerians. The Brown campaign is extremely well organized — have you noticed what a great job it’s doing getting its signs out?

And Bill Bishop, he’s got a lot of cash. He’s got the ‘big money boys’ behind him. He could afford to send out thousands and thousands of anonymous mailers almost every day.

So, of course I believe in Lenny’s denial. And you should too. Oh, ye of little faith! Unfortunately, there are people like you, Mr. Editor, who are not as trusting as I am. Do you know who you should trust? . I’LL TELL YOU WHO YOU SHOULD TRUST! . 

Here’s proof the mailers can’t be Lenny’s: Lenny wants to lead Jacksonville into the future. Judging from the mailers, though, they look like they’re trying to appeal to people who prefer remaining in the past. They look like they were produced by somebody who thinks it’s 1950. Whoever designed, printed, and sent out thousands and thousands of these seems to assume that the majority of the city’s voters are bigots. I am, most definitely, not one of those.

With everyone unfairly jumping to the conclusion that the mailers are coming from Lenny, they see them as giving the impression that he believes the voters are racists and that he’s pretending to be one of them. They unjustly see the mailers as saying, “You’re all racists, and I’m one too.” But then, Lenny, by saying he’s not actually the one sending them, subtracts the “I’m one too,” leaving in place the “You’re all racists” part. Let me stress that in no way do I find this pitch flattering.

Some people say that, if Lenny wants to regain respect, he needs to make a strong, unequivocal statement denouncing these mailers. But why should he? . HE’S NOT THE ONE SENDING THEM!! . Allow me to repeat: do you want to know who’s not sending the mailers? . I’LL TELL YOU WHO’S NOT SENDING THEM!! .Lenny Curry! How do I know? Because Lenny, most definitely, is not a racist. He hates LIBERALS and would like to see them dead, but he’s not a racist. You can tell how much he hates LIBERALS and how much he wants to see them dead from the mailers. 

Besides, he has all the respect he needs, but he could gain even more. Do you want to know how people gain respect? ,I’LL TELL YOU HOW!! .People earn respect by setting a goal and then striving to achieve it!  

Lenny doesn’t have just one goal: he’s got two! Does he want to be a polarizing, divisive figure? Does he want to be a race politician? For a person like me (who is not a racist) receiving these mailers, there’s no question, he wants to be both! These all laudable ambitions, but can he achieve them? Can he deliver? I believe he can. 

What if one were to unjustly jump to the conclusion that Lenny’s campaign is putting out these mailers? What then would the campaign sound like, based on them? It’d probably sound something like a record being played on a gramophone. Given the choice of a gramophone and an iPhone, people today prefer the latter. And that’s what’s wrong with people today!! Do you want to know what’s wrong with people today? .  I’LL TELL YOU WHAT’S WRONG WITH THEM!! . Today people are far too quick to turn to their devices and away from their heritage!

Besides its sound, what would Lenny’s campaign look like, if one were to judge it solely by the mailers? Do you want to know what I see in them? . I’LL TELL YOU WHAT I SEE IN THEM!! . I see something Ralph Steadman would draw after having indulged in hallucinogenics.

But Lenny is not a man who ingests psychedelics. The only thing Lenny has ingested is Peter Rummell’s money. That’s the thing that’s gotten him high. In the polls, I mean.

So, it’s unfair that you, Mr. Editor, do not believe Lenny when he says he didn’t do it. I know that the jails are full of people who say they didn’t do it, but Lenny’s different. Lenny is innocent.

You, sir, have become far too cynical. We live in cynical times, it’s true, but we can do something about it, to make things better. We can reduce cynicism by doing just one thing: recognizing Lenny’s denial for what it is.

Allow me to quote Mahatma Gandhi when I say, “Be the change I want to see in the world.” In other words, you, Mr. Editor, please be the change that I want to see in the world, by believing Lenny. Do you want to know what I want you to do? . I’LL TELL YOU WHAT I WANT YOU TO DO!! . I want you to change in the way I want you to change. . UNDERSTAND? . I want you to change into a person who believes Lenny!

And yes, I am, most definitely, carrying a concealed weapon. Unfortunately, writing a letter to the editor doesn’t provide me with a way to hold it directly to your head. Do you want to know why I want to hold a gun to your head? . I’LL TELL YOU WHY I WANT TO HOLD A GUN TO YOUR HEAD! . It’s because I suspect you’re a LIBERAL and refuse to UNDERSTAND that Lenny’s innocent.

Let me close by saying that my concealed weapon is no longer concealed. Don’t make me come down there to the Times-Union building! . . . . Or, better, maybe I should head back over to the CoRK Arts District and show the Jax Scriblerians they can’t treat me like this. Especially Ottobah. Somebody’s got to put that n—— in his place. Ottobah and the rest of the LIBERAL gang. It’ll be a target-rich environment. I refuse any longer to be just a keyboard commando. It’ll be a tough job, killing LIBERALS, but somebody’s got to do it! I’ll save one bullet for the app.

It’s noon now.

High noon.

It’ll be déjà vu all over again. Most definitely, it’s time. Time, that is, to give people a reason to wear Je suis Jaxonpool buttons. 

Mr. Editor, THE VOICE is urging me to wrap up this letter. I have a mission to carry out. Do you understand that we’ve now returned to the place where we started? Which is to say, back to the beginning of this letter? Everything in this letter turns out to be the reverse of what I said it’d be at the beginning. Everything’s turned around: plausible deniability, or is it deniable plausibility? Whichever it is, it worked for a while in Ferguson, and it can work here too, for a while. Lenny’s testing it out. Contrary then to what you expected, this letter turns out to be a joke, but there’s nothing about it that’s particularly funny.

Okay, I’m off. If I get picked up afterward, I’ll convince them Keyser Söze did it.

Yours, most definitely, in not being a racist,
Lemule Blogiver

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