My Uncle Freddie used to ghost write for Chris Hitchens. He came up with the hit piece on Mother Theresa, Mother effen Theresa, man. Freddie was a convert from unitarianism to an anti-religion zealot. I loved the guy, though - he stammered whenever he wanted to say "fuck" but always used "frig" or "friggen" instead because his Dad used soap in the mouth whenever he cursed as a kid and fuck was like Ralphie in Christmas Story. So today when I read that we've lost an exemplary human in Hitchens, I go to his vocal endorsement of invading Iraq in '03. Shock and awe. Dead babies because we had a score to settle. Dead citizens because of oil. OK, you don't judge a guy by one point of disagreement but unleashing shock and awe and revelling in it as an intelligent observer tells me just another guy who could express jaundiced opinions eloquently died today - gee, that means there's only a zillion of those guys left on the planet. I read much of Hitchens stuff mainly because I'm a phraseology glutton. Mailer was a dick and I devoured his composition, too. Strumming my pain with his fingers
Singing my life with his words
Killing me softly with his song
Killing me softly with his song
Telling my whole life with his words
Killing me softly
With his song