Friday, April 4, 2008

Are They Putting Stupid In The Water?

A-hey hey,

Thanks again for all the e-mails and comments. I'll try to answer some more this weekend if I have time (I won't). Anyway, just wanted to do another shout-out to a friend of mine who's started an online store for her stationery/crafts projects - I added her to my links (she's the first one), so check out her stuff. And I know you can afford it if you've got the leisure time to sit around reading this cavalcade of idiocy, so she'd better not report back to me that she didn't make any sales. Come on! 10% of each purchase goes to children's charities (not true). Anyway, it's your life - if you want to keep the soulless chains like Wal-Mart and the dope-dealing, pet-molesting Big Crafts cabal in business, it's your conscience you've got to live with. I merely point the way to a better tomorrow and cry as the world ignores my advice.

Hope everyone has a good weekend. Enough love. Now, as the prophet said, it is time for hate.

Entertainment Weekly, March 21, 2008


Thanks for featuring the Jonas Brothers ("The Three Mouseketeers")! "It's about time" EW recognized them. Their YouTube videos are hilarious.
Meri Piro
South Salem, N.Y.


The Jonas Brothers: No moppets as lovable
as we would ever date-rape you!


Meri,
The sad thing is, those videos aren't supposed to be funny. But then, neither was your letter, I'm sure (though it gave me quite the chuckle to think of anyone over the age of 12 sitting down to compose a letter about these freaks). But then again, who gives a shit? I'm pretty sure that, just by virtue of my being a male over 30 years old, merely typing out the words "Jonas Brothers" on my keyboard gives the FBI sufficient cause to bust in through the windows and search my hard drive for kiddie porn, so why don't we change the subject? As I mentioned in yesterday's post, there are many topics that make for more fascinating discussion than neutered teen singing groups or celebrities with cancer. As I also mentioned yesterday, one of those subjects is peanut butter, which children and adults the world over consider delightful and nourishing. Cereally, Meri, have you ever seen a peanut? They're hard and oval, somewhat similar in consistency to pebbles that have been buffed smooth from sitting in a lake bed for centuries. And yet, nearly 2,000 years ago (the 1800s), somebody came up with the idea to make the damned things spreadable. And guess what? They did! That's fucking genius, if you ask me, and I mean actual genius, not like when people casually toss around the term to refer to shitheads like Jim Morrison or Jerry Garcia. They even made both a creamy variety and a chunky variety! Do you realize what that means? For the chunky, the crazy bastards had to rig it so that not every molecule of the peanut was mashed into paste, but they also had to ensure that the peanut chunks left in the mix wouldn't be so large that you'd choke to death every time you got stoned and dipped a Hershey's bar in the jar for a snack. How do they do that? I have no idea, and neither does anybody else. As far as I know, they have a team of Keebler elves working 'round-the-clock to carve up the peanuts into regulation-sized morsels with their wee pickaxes and miniature jeweler's tools. All I can say for sure is: There's something magical involved. And that magic translates to a taste sensation unlike any other. It's like there's a party in your mouth, except without any of the undignified sexual connotations you probably think of when you hear that phrase. Trust me, Meri - once you try peanut butter, you'll forget all about innocuous boy bands and enter a real garden of earthly delights. Now begone, wench, afore I lose my patience with your tomfoolery and give you a walloping!

p.s. If any peanut butter company execs want to use the preceding in their ad campaigns, you can have it for a cool £5,000 (that's pounds, not dollars - I don't deal in currency that's likely to be worthless in a year or two) in unmarked bills (I don't know why this is desirable, but it's what the kidnappers always ask for in movies, so it must be cool), but if I see even a fragment of it in your literature (and I subscribe to Peanut Butter Industry Press Releases Weekly), I'll sue your asses back to the Bronze Age. And that was not a good age for peanut butter, my friends. I'm totally fucking serious, assholes. Don't test me. You'll be sorry. Oh yes, you will be sorry.
Jesus loves you!

Don't shoot someone tomorrow that you can shoot today,
John

Will Ferrell has played a basketball player, an ice-skater, and a NASCAR driver ("A Man for All Seasons"). What's next: a hedge clipper?
Sam Chambers

Moundsville, W. Va.


If They Mated: Phil Spector and a Chia Pet

Sam,
*sigh*
Yes, next is a hedge clipper. Good one. Or at least it would have been a good one if a hedge clipper had anything in common with professional athletes. Instead, you had to fuck up the punchline by vomiting up some non sequitur that probably seemed like the pinnacle of wit when you first uttered it to your drunken friends as you all huddled around the engine block of your Dodge Ram or whatever it is you do to pass the time there in Moundsville (awesome name, by the way - are your neighboring cities Lumpy Meadows and Faintly-Nugget-Shaped-Protrusions Township? Because they damn well should be). But I have to tell you, you may have wanted to try it out on somebody sober in the cold light of day before sending it in for publication, because I guarantee you're never going to get another date after this travesty. Way to inadvertently ruin your own life, maaaaan. I'm a little sad to even be associated with you tangentially. Man, what were you thinking? Stick to knock-knock jokes if you want to retain any kind of credibility whatsoever. I mean, people will still think you're a stupid fool, but at least they'll know you didn't actually write the things. Dude. Not cool. Not cool. I'm just going to go over here now, before somebody thinks we're together. I'm sorry it's got to be this way. We'll always be bros, but I need to be in my own space for a while. Thanks for understanding. I love you, but I'm not in love with you. You know the drill.

You in your autumn sweater,
John

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

thanks for the shout-out john! and thanks for cracking me up every day. (and p.s. i agree, peanut butter is an amazing thing.)

Anonymous said...

You are knucking futts! And your signatures crack me up. Keep up the great work.

Anonymous said...

Got here from the Straight Dope. You seem to style yourself as some Radalesque character ala Clerks who thinks he is the wittiest and smartest shit on the fucking planet. You are certainly correct about the shit part, the other bit, not so much. It's truly sad and pathetic that you would willingly choose to do this type of shit, playing anonymous character assassination, but then that seems to be what 80% of the Internet is about these days.

I pray that you are found by the people you so cruelly and blithely insult and that they beat you so severely with baseball bats that you are in the ICU for 3 months and have to wear a colostomy bag and a diaper for the rest of your life.

Oh, and as was mentioned in the thread you started on the Straight Dope, you are breaking the law, and I hope you get sued into bankruptcy.

Gutter filth, that's what you are.

John said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
John said...

Thanks for writing! It wasn't necessary to mention that you came here from the Straight Dope Message Boards, though. Nobody who wrote anything as self-righteous, humorless and filled-with-rage due-to-overwhelming-feelings-of-impotence could have come from anywhere else.

Anyhow, on to your comment. First off, I didn't realize there was a character named "Radal" in Clerks, so I guess I'll have to re-watch it before making any determination on your comparison. I must take issue, however, with your characterization of me as one who thinks he's the wittiest and smartest on the planet. I believe I pointed out in this very post that that honor went to the inventor of peanut butter. Try reading for comprehension rather than going off half-cocked (not to impugn your manhood) and foaming at the mouth about what you perceive my self-image to be. I'm also uncertain about what you mean by being correct about the shit part - if I remove the adjectives, your point seems to be that I "think I'm the shit on the fucking planet", which makes no sense even as a Tourette's tic. Please do send me another of your eloquent epistles to clarify.

You're right, though - I should be ashamed of the "anonymous character assassination" I "play". I guess it would be more noble if I offered some clues as to who I am, such as listing my name, or e-mail address, or location, or a photo somewhere on my blog page. But we can't all be like you, fearlessly giving out all our personal details every time we want to post something on the 'net. I'll endeavor to be more courageous in the future.

But back to your point: you're correct in your assertion that it is evil to "cruelly and blithely" make fun of strangers' letters to tabloid magazines. But, though I realize it's small consolation, at least I don't hope they're violently assaulted and rendered disabled for the rest of their lives, right? I mean, that would be really assholish, wouldn't it? Heck, that's just the kind of wild overreaction that led us into Vietnam (and its sequel, currently playing at a theater of war near you). So give me some credit.

As to the legality - what, you didn't think I was going to take the opinions of some "Radalesque" know-it-alls on the internet's word for that, did you? I'll wait to hear from someone who works in copyright law before deciding what to do about that (which will most likely consist of completely ignoring the advice of counsel and answering these letters anyway - because somebody has to recognize these people's right to have their letters responded to, dammit!). But, if it comes down to it, I suppose they'll be entitled to the $47 in my bank account. I am nothing if not a great respecter of the judicial system in this country.

Finally, some of what you so cavalierly refer to as "gutter filth" is quite useful and nutritional - I once found carton of Ben & Jerry's and a shiny new quarter in the gutter, so maybe you shouldn't paint with such a broad brush. No problem, though - I'll just choose to believe you meant I am a tasty frozen confection as well as a unit of currency when you describe me thusly, since you seem like such a generous type. See you on the message boards, buddy! Keep fighting ignorance!

Hugs,
John

p.s. You know, when you're going to tell me what message board you came from, it would probably be better for you if I wasn't familiar with most of the regular posters there, and thus able to narrow down your identity pretty significantly. But then, being so obviously the genius you are, I'm sure you took that into account.

John said...

Damn! Forgot to add: You do realize that with StatCounter I can see who came to my blog at what time, from what site, how long they stayed, which city they're from, and their IP address, don't you? Of course you do. You're smart.

Anonymous said...

Other Anonymous:

You go fight 'em, tiger! Yeah! You take that son of a bitch, John, down and – wait a minute. We all know the blogger's name...and his email. It’s strange, Anonymous, that we don’t know yours. What a neat trick.

Your colostomy bag comment was very nice, though. Every twenty-something hipster male who just discovered they were a 'writer' uses that phrase too. They find the image witty. Maybe even smart.

Well, I'm done posting. Wouldn't want to stay too long in the comment section and have you come after me with your posse armed with baseball bats. I have rather lovely ankles. It’d be a crying shame to have them shattered.

I need you to need me,
Mia