GO. OUT. SIDE. vol. 9

 Peter Sotos was something else. He mined a very specific bit of distinctly American horror back in the 1980s and while cats like Jesse Helms were chasing Karen Finley for getting government monies, it was in these environs that Sotos was arrested.

You see in 1984 while most of the post-punk tribe were publishing some variant of fanzines, Sotos was publishing Pure, a magazine, at least by our reading, that focused almost exclusively on both the fictional rape and murder of children and, in rare occasions, adult women.

Later a Scottish suspect in multiple and actual child abductions and murders was found in possession of Pure, and this kicked off a daisy chain of events that culminated with Sotos’ arrest in Illinois. Though pleading guilty to the possession of child pornography, Sotos became a cause célèbre, and ultimately his work was collected in a volume called Total Abuse, a review copy of which I had on my coffee table.

I found the writing to be deftly clinical and unexpected in its impact sans the use of the kind of rough language that you’d expect to accompany such rough trade. It was painstakingly contructed, detailed, and horrific because of it. A surgeon friend of mine happened to stop by once and fingering through Total Abuse, he grunted.

“You know,” he held the book in the air. “I can understand writing a story like that. A story or two…” and then he feathered the pages so they flipped from side to side. “…But this MUCH?” He regarded the volume and shrugged.

When the Interwebs started burbling over with well-placed marketing and “timely” outrage connected to Dave Chappelle’s The Closer, I didn’t even choose to ignore it. Choosing to ignore something implies a certain amount of effort. When Elvis Costello busted off after I had bought his first two records with an ill-timed take about Ray Charles being an “ignorant nigger,” I didn’t boycott him. His music just interested me much less. Which took no effort at all.

But this MUCH…that is, the culture war afoot in, on and around Chappelle and the topic of Chappelle’s last tranche of specials, all four of them? My days of being a plaything of the rich were well behind me I’d like to think. I just wasn’t going to get involved. It started to dovetail though. Into? Into random conversations about gender, trans lives and lifelong Republicans declaring Chappelle a genius. Not Chappelle of 20 years ago. But Chappelle of today.

A Dave Chappelle Walks Into a Bar and...

They say that laughter is the best medicine but we guess that really depends on what you're sick with.