You're reading: Antifreeze-September 23, 1999

While most newspapers in town worry about the tax police raiding them if they step out of KuchmaХs party line, the Post ought to be more worried about the good -taste police shutting us down. In these times of political trepidation, the Post is channeling itХs energies into rearranging the ТDay and NightУ section.

This decision, in principle, is relatively sound. After all, we face far more competition from the endless cheer of WhatХs On than the English-language version of Den. Therefore, the Post has to counter with more, bigger and better coverage of KyivХs entertainment abyss.

We havenХt yet stooped to the level of the daily newspaper Fakti, with a regular picture of a nude woman on the back cover. Actually, I was a big proponent of that strategy Р I firmly believe that, while it might have caused a mini-scandal, the English-speaking community here would actually dig it.

Think about it, we all know those sleazy businessmen who leave their wives, kids and scruples behind and come to Ukraine for some extramarital adventures in this land of beautiful babes and lowered inhibitions. WouldnХt they be fond of that sort of feature?

Unfortunately, in spite of my lobbying, our puritanical editors won out, and we will find other ways to expand the section. We already have expanded our ТTime OutУ section, added more picks, and plan more changes when we get around to it.

This expansion also explains why the editors have decided to plaster a picture of my mug on the page to go along with this column. Perhaps it is their way of distancing themselves from the abuses that my pen will dish out. This column will make no effort at consistency beyond an attempt to trash the sad-ass lives of ex-pats and natives equally. This piece, which I already love to think of as JakeХs weekly Manifesto, has no interest in fairness or maintaining even a vestige of journalistic responsibility.

In my unceasing attempt to warp reality and critique everything in my line of sight, I commit myself to the following guiding principles:

Ґ Ukrainians think our fashion is as weird as we think theirs is.

Ґ America is not Utopia.

Ґ Oleksandr Moroz is Santa Claus, clean shaven.

Ґ The rule of law is overrated.

Ґ Nothing really rhymes with nomenclature.

This belief system will resound throughout my column, and hopefully, in the minds of at least a few, be relevant in the ТDay and NightУ section.

But, I shouldnХt flatter myself. The real appeal of this feature is not going to be what I write. Anyone who has ever spent more than five minutes with a spoiled ex-pat knows that most ex-pats dream about having a regular soap box with a captive audience where anything is fair target.

So, while I wax lyrical about the shortcomings of life here for those who attempt to reconstruct some ill-defined Western city in the heart of Kyiv, I suspect that ex-pat readers will not so much read what I write as fantasize about what they could write. IХm not talking about some sort of saccharine-sweet commentary common to the run-of-the mill ex-pat rag, but a really noxious, irreverent gripe.

Our Ukrainian readers, on the other hand, will read it for the intermittent articles in which I bash my own. As the perpetual targets of the Western press, it must feel good to see the tables turned occasionally.

But enough of this speculation. Whatever your personal reason for reading this column, it probably has something to do with the shortage of English-language reading material in Kyiv. So, for now you have no choice Р at least until either the tax police or the good-taste police get us.