Goldstein Strikes Back: An Epistle and A Half

The following was slipped under my door after yesterday's post:

Mr. Jack Goodstein
%A Flasher’s Dozen

Dear Mr. Goodstein:

Your whining diatribe against me in a recent issue of the above publication having come to my attention, I should like to take the opportunity to set the record straight.

You accuse me of appearing from out of thin air to claim credit for your own less than stellar performances in literature, on the stage and lord only knows where else your deranged imagination might fancy, and then somehow vanishing back into that slender ether to avoid confrontation with your righteous wrath. Leaving aside the question of why I, or anyone else for that matter, would want to take credit for your rather paltry productions, I would suggest the very notion of appearing from and disappearing into the cliche thin air is laughable at best, delusional at worst.

I am there, you say.

I am not there, you say.

You, Goodstein, are perhaps indulging in some hallucinatory substance.

What is it, other than your own paranoia, that would explain any sane person spending his life playing Jekyll to your Hyde?

Jealousy? Of what? A performance in a community theatre production of “Fiddler on the” goddamn “Roof?” Inane ramblings posing as fiction in internet journals little noted nor long remembered?

Nonsense.

Persecution, you say.

Piffle, I say.

Goldstein is above such things. Goldstein wants no credit for Goodstein garbage; Goldstein takes no credit for Goodstein trash.
The phenomenon to which you allude in your libelous calumny is nothing more than your own attempt to garner credit for my–I repeat–my work, to bask in the glow of the gold of Goldstein.

Who, having seen, excrescences from the pen of Goodstein, could ever confuse them with the gems of Goldstein? Goodstein, your own words belie you. The proof is there for anyone with eyes to see. Read anything of Goodstein and compare it with the work of Goldstein. Could the work of the one have possibly been the work of the other?

I think not.

Now let me turn to the nonsense about your acting career, if unpaid, unnoticed performances in the hinterlands can be called a career. Again, the accusation is ludicrous.

Goldstein, sir, is not, nor ever has been of the thespian persuasion. Moreover, if he were, he, I, would never stoop to step upon any stage the boards of which had been trodden by the likes of you.

I know you Goodstein. Your puny talent has not escaped me. I have had the ill fortune to sit benumbed in the audience while you strutted your painful hour upon the painful stage. Trust me, Goldstein takes more pride in himself than to wish credit for or confusion with any such agonies inflicted on an unsuspecting audience.

You, Goodstein, are a victim of some mental disorder, and if you continue to employ my name in your delusional fantasies, I shall be forced to take legal action.

Yours truly,

Goldstein


P.S. I have attached a copy of the letter I have sent to the editor of the publication (a term I use very loosely) in which your insane rantings were printed. I have also sent him a copy of the above.


Dear Sir:

Any further publication of the bipolar ravings of Jack Goodstein which include references to myself will force me to turn the matter over to my attorneys.

I have enclosed a copy of a letter I have written to said Goodstein. You have my permission to make what use of it you will.

And I may say, in conclusion, You should be ashamed to have your periodical serve as a vehicle for the lunacies of that madman. Your readers deserve better.

Sincerely,

Goldstein