Yes, I do know that Al and Howard bring joy to millions. Much on the order of what my old co-writing buddy of fifty years, L. Russell Brown, used to do with ditties like "Tie A Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Old Oak Tree" when I was in the music industry. And, yes, I'm aware that millions have been "mobilized" as a result of their "bazillion-selling books"...much on the order of what was accomplished by Michael Moore with his now-deflated motion picture motivators.

Yeah, I know their value, their so-called positive points...apart...as is. I, too, can twist myself to see shafts of light. I'm more interested here, however, in dwelling in the depths of their collective depravity. Getting past the People magazine hit on why they're important. And focusing on the fright they represent.

No Gothic horror scares me nearly as much as that duo does. Not that Frankenstein is a true representative of that genre. But that's another story.

Emmy Award-winning television writer and producer, Grammy-winning comedian, radio host, and bestselling author Al Franken can bring a smile to my face too. But I never forget that he served as a Fellow with Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, the same institution that embraced Guatemala's Gramajo, a child-killing genocidist if ever there was one. (2) From a more mundane angle, I always remind myself that his humor serves to compound ignorance with ignorance. For when he's not playing off of stinking stereotypes, going for the easy laugh, he's --at rock bottom-- helping one and all to remain in denial.

Howard, our stern Satellite Radio Revolutionary of late, reinforces our filth so that one is tempted to say "It's the Culture, Stupid," and stay away from commentary on the faltering economy. Wack Packer HS, like the Frankster, is also from the coarsest part of Ground Zero (NYC's entertainment industry), living with what I'm sure are fine, lovely functional "families" there. That should be true of Al too.

But, seriously, Red State values are not my concern. If Bill Maher had sold more books and/or if Michael Moore had not gone "not IN" I might have considered blending the two of them*. As it is, the two dynamos I'm focusing upon represent the very forefront of what the Democratic Party's all about, what liberals cheer and shout about. Chat and fraternizing. Still life regressive, proclaiming progress! Invoking Science and Technology.(*Besides the "Mahrmores Monster" didn't have quite the same ring as Frankenstern, anymore than my phonetic marriage of Jon Stewart and Dennis Miller did.)

The very worst, they all are: Popularity As A Point-Maker, Disingenuous Radical Stances, Self-Serving Shenanigans/Sales, etc. Moore hit absolute rock bottom forever on a recent Leno show, coming out in suit and tie, harping on how it wasn't all bad for him this year. Laughing with Jay...playing. As if now, in retrospect, it was "just another election" (and fraud didn't rule the day, with the likelihood of doing so in the future). All of them, at the drop of a top hat (if the stakes were right), would march off with Robin Williams and entertain the troops.

Filth in the form of chauvinism.

The Main Two (Al and Howard), each in their own way, will lead us astray, if we let them. Unimpeded, they will --and this is arguably their greatest sin (if there is anything such as "sin" in the industry)--further a false sense of solidarity, ensuring that the left goes nowhere...that the right doesn't allow it to go.

Entertaining the troops and reinforcing excessive, blind patriotism? What a combo! Made to order.

But...if the two are intertwined into a single monster.... What then?

Leonard Wolf has said:

"...when we see Victor Frankenstein's creature
lurching across the movie screen of a darkened
theater, we intuit that we and the creature are in
the right place. There he stands, lifting first his eyes
and then his hands to the mysterious light, compelled
into life by Mary Shelly's vision. His hands waver,
but despite error and pain, despite confusion and terror,
he keeps reaching upward to an eternal fire. True, his
task and ours is hopeless, but that stumbling flesh has a
responsibility to reach toward light is always clear." (3)

Responsibility? Franken, Stern, Maher, Moore, Stewart and Miller, among others, have dispensed with such notions. And anyone who thinks otherwise is blind and/or doesn't know Show Biz.

For us, it's quite difficult to meet our responsibilities with the Frankenstern Monster straddling our own newly-implanted electrodes. We have enough of a burden to carry without being dragged down by gold diggers, shameless spotlighters.

The Golem would not work for money.

The only reason to write about what's, essentially, been written about before is to offer up something which will improve our lives, protect us from The Real Monster.

For me, it's all worthwhile if my readers will acknowledge that what my creation represents must be killed. For in doing so, great advances can be made.

As quickly as we can say "Shanty, Shanty, Dahat, Dahat!" we should do away with what, in fact, we have all created.

The execrable and truly pitiful creature I have sewn together here rises above being the simple unmitigated horror that is The Monster in many minds. It is, undoubtedly, an appropriate phenomenon for our times. It begs for understanding.

And so it talks. In persuasive tones...that encourage us to prolong its life.

But it not only must be killed. We must be present at its death.

All deaths in Frankenstein are direct and unambiguous. All but that of what Mary Shelley must have felt was her most unfortunate creature. The fictive death of The Monster there is not seen. The creature is left in a limbo of his own promise to die.

"He was son borne away by the waves, and lost in darkness and distance."

That's the last line of Shelley's work. A few strokes of the pen could have had Walton killing The Monster. But no, she gave him "an out" (a possible escape) in the mind.

What are we responsible for? When Stern's name comes up, when Franken appears on the screen, etc. we are obligated to "be present." To testify against them. To not give in to the impulse to live and let live. To not be concerned with the tentacles of socializing.

To make a judgment out loud, direct and unambiguous. To take a stand against Popular Culture and all of its rotting branches.

It's one thing to get behind lighting up a torch to torture a cinematic Monster, and its quite another to destroy what I'm putting in front of you here. (4)

Which leaves us at The Doorstep of Compassion.

My readers have often confused my invoking images of violence (See as an example) with advocating violence across the board. Certainly, when I use words such as "killing" I can be contributing to such confusion. But aside from the fact that there's a world of difference between computer hacking and hacking someone to death with a hatchet, one must make a distinction between putting an end to things as a knee-jerk reaction to abominations/responses as a function of revenge...and killing with compassion.

The latter is not out of line with what Gandhi preached. Nor is it at variance with what many indigenous people advocate/practice. In fact, it has a long, well-respected history.

Lest anyone think that my ideal scenario would see Al and Howard wiped from the face of the earth regardless of the means or attitude involved, permit me to clarify the importance of compassion in doing away with The Monster Frankenstern.

It applies to all enemies, all monsters.

It is too easy to form solidarity based on passion. Such togetherness has a very soft-underbelly. Passion against someone or something must be transmuted into something that allows for compassion.

With the awakening of the heart relationships can be transformed so that combat with other people does not preclude identification with them. In fact, identification with someone as out of whack as, say Franken, Stern or even Bush, is requisite for healthy confrontation.

Such Mitleid is mandatory as it makes for an altogether different mode of monster-mashing than what both the left and right are used to as a rule. It allows for an attitude other than that of ruthless animality.

It rises above concern with self-preservation. It acknowledges that "poverty, despair, and hopelessness caused by war, natural disaster, or indifference are a much a part of this life as harmony, success, and prosperity." (5) That evil cannot be erased definitively. That clowns such as Franken and Howard in one form or another will thrive in some hideous corner regardless of what we do.

And it pushes us, invites us to keep our eyes on The Light, not the light bulb.

The illumination we seek, the radiance the world needs will not come from the hands of mad scientists or Mad Hatters in Office.

It will come from us being as imaginative as Boris Karloff was in collaboration with James Whale on the eve of the Hitlerian takeover of Europe, without hawking holocaustic humor.


Richard Oxman is an artist of sorts living in Los Gatos, California for now. He prays that readers will contact him directly at dueleft@yahoo.com ASAP. For purposes of moving in solidarity and/or applauding cloudland.