Love

I'm not sure why, but I rarely read a Hollis Gillespie column without seeing a part of myself, my life, in her words. And I rarely read her column without feeling, without emotion, without something stirring inside. And so it was again today. I read "Lost things" at lunchtime then quietly seasoned my chicken salad with tears. You see, my dad died last year--a slow, heart wrenching death from Alzheimer's. But even before lunchtime today, he's been in my thoughts a lot lately. He would have been 79 on Veteran's Day. So I hurried home from work and made a beeline for the photograph--the one he loved, the one I cherish. What a handsome young sailor he was. And I lost it for the second time today. Thank you Hollis for another beautiful piece.

You've fucked me up... thank you. I love your stories, they are very pictoral. Sometimes a little too much. I still cannot get the picture out of my head of the little girl who was thrown off the cliff by her mother. I see her with her arms raised in the air, fear in her face, and calling for her mother. It kills me every time. For some sick reason, this has drawn me to read your column first every week. I guess it's because I was so caught off guard. It really made me think of things outside of my box, and I really felt something. Keep up the good work, and be gentle on us...

I never will forget the first time I read one of your columns. It was like drifting over the line when your half asleep driving on a country back road somewhere. I was working at MetLife and they have this shitty little E.Coli Cafe in the basement and I had ordered lunch and was chowing down when I turned to your column. As I read it all I could think was that's me and I have written this column before. I sort of remember the particular column being about your old man being at the bar and some behavior you engaged into amuse yourself. I did the same thing. I grew up in California and everywhere because we were always trying to outrun the rent. My father was 6'5" 350 and he loved to get drunk and beat the shit out things. I had a crazy grandmother instead of a mother who drove me nuts. My mother was just not able to stand up to him and its given me problems with women for years. My grandmother put me in reform schools and orphanages all across this great land. Well at age 51 I just finished my first novel and put everything into it. I don't give a shit if I ever get published, because that wasn't the point. I read your columns to get a feel about you and it makes me wonder why you don't take your "gift" and do something with it? It's not my place to ride your butt about it, but you have a gift and something to say. It should be said. I hope you say it. I am sure you have enough friends to keep you busy, so I am not going to intrude. But I was you once and I waited till it was almost too late. If you have already done something or your working on something please disregard this email. But I am in there pitching for you kid. Your humor is your pain and I know it well.

Hello. I am from Pittsburgh, PA. Recently, I took a trip to Georgia to visit my Aunt for the first time in years. I've never been there before. She took me to a very intriguing restaurant called the "Corner Cafe." She told me to go pick up one of those free papers across the way and I did. We all love free stuff, right? Later on, I was leafing through the Creative Loafing while I was left alone. Your article, Falling-Landing is always the hardest part, was the first one I read. I just wanted to let you know that the article was SO well written that it blew me away. I cried. Who am I kidding, I sobbed. I read it to my mother and she did the same. I took it back here to Pittsburgh with me and shared it with everyone I worked with, friends, etc. They all asked me for more copies in order to continue it on. I loved the way you wrote it. It started out completely off the subject, yet it all fit together. It was perfect. I just wanted to let you know that it touched me very deeply. I am still sharing it with everyone I meet. I am just passing it out everywhere, telling people the HAVE to read it. I don't think I'll ever see a Creative Loafing again. I hope I do, but that's a little difficult all the way up here. You are an extraordinary writer. Keep up the good work.

Hey Hollis, I wrote to you a couple of years ago when you were writing for the Atlanta Press to sing your praises. I am writing again today to do the same. Your article this week is one of your best. I cried while reading it and cried again while reading it to my husband and a friend. You captured how I felt watching all of this on TV. I could not take my eyes away, not because I was fascinated, but because I wanted and needed to feel as much pain and sadness as I could. I felt that somehow that might take some of it away from those it was happening to and those who love them. Thanks for your beautiful words. It is comforting knowing that someone else feels the way I do.

Jeez, I never thought I'd read a Hollis Gillespie article that would make me cry. Just when I think I've gotten over the whole WTC thing, you write this article. It's definitely a keeper. Yours is the best column in CL - keep up the great work.

Hi Hollis, just read your column about the couple in Barcelona... it was terrific writing... I was microwaving my lunch and stood there to finish it long after the last beep... really the best essay I've read in a long long time... tell me where I can read more of your stuff.

Hate

Dear Ms. Gillespie: Your recent "A reason to live" column in CL prompts me to send you this e-mail. That column is a perfect example of your self-absored, self-obsessed, whiny writng style. Who gives a dman about your pathetic life and that cast of sexually challenegd characters. I have never read such crap in my life: "cruddy butt," and "constipated boa constricker" - oh please!! Ms. Gilespie, you stick as a writer and your columns are the rambling of one fucked-up, neurotic female - you are female aren't you?
Happy New Year.

Your article in Creative Loafing was one of the funniest things I have ever read although I doubt if you are aware from the tone of your writing how absurd it was. The Mediterranean world is not puritanical America, or even Bible-belt Georgia with its extraordinary fear and revulsion of lust and desire which you so blindly impose on your fellow travelers, and I doubt whether anyone but yourself and a few other tourist refugeees from other regressive places, and states of mind, really cared or even payed much attention to those young Spaniards enjoying themselves and indulging in their desires. And quoting a 2nd rate poet writing a 10th rate poem that is almost completely imitative of 1st rate artists does not a truth make, but simply exposes another absurd lie.

Instead of Eliot's silly and sterile eulogy for Western civilization, maybe you should try reading the works of others who might find April and the first stirrings of nature a little more interesting than just "cruel", and the passion of lovers, whether young or old, a little more fascinating than just "dry humping" ( a description of a camel's walk in a desert caravan maybe ? ). Even the terminology you use is reminiscent in rhythm and diction of the unfortunate townspeople of Salem in Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" in their monstrous disapproval of Hester Prynne, showing how far Hawthorne ( a 1st rate artist ) could see into the future.

Ah, the disappointment those poor, young Spaniards would feel, "two fools with their toes sticking over the ledge of their teens", if they only knew how their innocence would turn into unhappiness when they
will be "hit with the brick of knowledge that the world is not their personal balloon on a string after all" ( and here the reader starts rolling on the floor laughing in true spastic style ). Well, Ms. Gillespie, I am on the side of those Spaniards and their enjoyment, and the only wish I have for them is that they don't read Eliot's lugubrious nonsense, nor your equally absurd "The long goodbye", and I think they will turn out just fine.

I just read your article on Spain. I don't wish to match the poisonous invective of it with more negative comment, but would only suggest that you find out what is bothering you and confront it. What good is there in this snide, too hip attack on young love?

Just wanted to drop a line to let you know that your columns suck. REALLY suck. I don't know how many C.L. editors you had to blow to get this gig, but I wish one of them had had the restraint to keep his johnson in his pants--then all of Atlanta would've been spared your derivative and insipid navel-gazing. You know, you're kinda like the AJC-era Ron Hudspeth. He had about four basic columns (that he reworked over and over), but you have only one: "Here's what's going on in my dead-end life." Do you really think that anybody gives a rat's ass about your psycho mom or your idiot offspring or your pathetic loser friends? And what is your morbid fascination with piss and shit!? You can't let a week go by without mentioning some form of human excretia, an obsession which suggests that you still have a cluster of dangerously unresolved "potty" issues. I bet you're one of those twisted fucks who harbors secret fantasies about playing with her own turds or serving as a human toilet. Well I'll tell you what: I'd be happy to come down and piss all over your fat oily face if you'll just do us all a favor and STOP WRITING. NOW!