# Letters from Early January, 2000

## by Readers of McSweeney’s

Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2000  
From: Jesse Lichtenstein  
Subject: upgrades

Dear McSweeney’s,

Just yesterday I found myself wondering whether Winona Ryder flies First Class. I soon realized that there are nested layers to my ignorance on this topic. Do any movie stars fly on commercial flights, or do they charter planes? If they fly commercially, do they even want to sit up front, where (on small flights, at least) every passenger must file past and either gawk or not notice them? Or do they board first, sit far aft, and wear dark sunglasses? Do they have their own lavatories? Does Ms. Ryder fly at all? Might she not have a pilot’s license? I ask you.

I have only once seen a television or movie personality on board an airplane. This was on a Shuttle by United evening flight from San Francisco to Medford, Oregon. The bronzed, middle-aged man had been a leading actor on a television drama in the seventies or eighties. He had played a kindly patriarch, or maybe a hotshot detective. He sat in First Class and chatted amiably before takeoff with an attractive stewardess. As I walked by, I noticed that he wore shiny cowboy boots. Another stewardess soon velcroed shut the blue polyester curtain separating First Class from Coach, and there ended my encounter. I cannot remember the actor’s name, and as he was no longer a TV star, and had never been a movie star, he has no bearing on my question.

I appeal to you because I am trying to calculate the chances of my sitting next to Winona Ryder on an airplane. I think they are small, but I would like to believe they exist. There are probably many people who deserve this opportunity more than I, people who are actually her fans, people who think she is more than a usually-palatable actress. But this past week I have spent recovering from the flu has allowed me mentally to script our conversation in intricate detail, complete with numerous contingencies, forking paths, and Boolean operations. It all turns out splendidly, I can tell you! I won’t go into the many possible scenarios here, but each begins with me silently studying a profile of "the new Cincinnati " in my in-flight magazine for ten minutes after takeoff, all the while reciting to myself the personal tenet that the only people I might be awed by meeting are those like Gandhi or that Burmese woman under house arrest or anyone who has made the Kierkegaardian ‘movement of the infinite,’ except with his or her faith resting not in an afterlife but in the eventual transcendent power of human goodness, and in so doing has somehow moved far beyond the wholly-natural yet craven self-preservation instinct to which most of us understandably cling, and that mediocre actresses don’t even figure on this scale, even if they are beautiful in a doe-eyed, nasally-voiced sort of way, because they have not tacitly agreed to die violently for an ideal of nonviolence, which is a resolution I find inconceivable and worthy of respectfully curious, if not reverent, awe. And then, turning my head slightly but not looking directly at her, I say, “You may not remember this, but you once babysat me.”

Which is entirely true.

It was during a visit to Marin County, in the mid-eighties. My bedtime was probably nine o’clock. I have no memory of the evening.

And so I would like to know whether it is worth it to squander my carefully hoarded frequent flier miles on an upgrade to First Class.

I thank you,

Jesse Lichtenstein

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Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2000  
From: Kristian Jansen Jaech  
Subject: Interesting Language

Dear McSweeney’s,

I couldn’t help but notice that Ned Peets’s article contained, besides interesting, engaging content, a quirky linguistic anomaly.

In his description of The Two Old Ladies, One of Whom Wears A Rubber Band On Her Head, Mr. Peets says the destination of the old ladies is a “convenience store-slash-Pakastani-video-rental-place.” Now, I love hyphenated words like this, but I found it interesting that we normally make hyphenated words like this in conversations to convey thoughts normally expressed in WRITING. Yeah, you know what I’m talking about: the “slash” in the sentence. We SAY these “thing-slash-other-thing” sentences to emulate the WRITTEN “thing/other thing.” Peets might have easily said the ladies were going to a convenience store/Pakastani video rental. Instead we have a word in writing emulating a spoken term used to emulate writing. Incredible and brilliant!

Your #24 Fan,

Kristian Jaech

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From: “Mike Topp”  
Subject: Timmy John  
Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2000

Dear McSweeney’s,

I remember the first time we left little Timmy John alone. We had one of those doors for the cat to go in and out of. Sure enough, when we got home, little Timmy John had his head caught in it. He wasn’t hurt or anything—just a little frightened. But the cat was mad.

Yours truly,

Mike Topp

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From: “Mike Topp”  
Subject: Correction  
Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2000

Dear McSweeney’s,

I have a large IQ and shirt. To hide my deformity I wear special clothing. Once, as a joke, I put my shirt on backwards. No one got it.

Best,

Mike Topp

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From: “Mike Topp”  
Subject: L’Envoi  
Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2000

Dear McSweeney’s,

The king has eleven horses. Nine ran away. The queen has ten dogs. She gives six away. Does it bother you that the king has horses and the queen has dogs?

Sincerely,

Mike Topp

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Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2000  
From: Gabe Hudson  
Subject: Letter to McSweeney’s, Five Memories

Dear McSweeney’s,

Here are the others you asked for. I hope this is what you had in mind.

Memory about Flying a Kite

1\. I used to have this really beautiful kite in the shape of a worm. My dad and I would take the kite to the park and go fishing for clouds. Once a bird flew into the worm’s mouth.

Memory about Funny People

2\. Groucho was on TV. He grabbed the sword off the wall and said something, and dry tears came pouring out of my mouth. You might call it laughing, but there was nothing funny about it whenever somebody knocked the wind out of my eyes with a joke.

Memory about Gym Class

3\. I kept worrying that if I took my clothes off too fast my skin might come off with them, which would have been pretty embarrassing, because then everyone would know that I had glow-in-the-dark bones.

Memory about Getting Ready for Bed

4\. Each night I’d build a bridge out of water from one end of the bathtub to the other. Tidal waves travelled over the bridge. Imaginary people travelled over the bridge. One time my voice fell off the bridge and drowned I. Couldn’t call for help.

Memory about Dental Hygiene

5\. Brush your teeth with music smile at the radio.

As ever,

Gabe Hudson

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From: “Dan Kennedy”  
Subject: reconsider your stance on this one, guys!  
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2000

Dear McSweeney’s,

Sorry, but your writer is going to have to try a little harder to convince me that web based survey and census applications make more sense for those on the go. Trying to preview my surveys with a 28.8 or 56k internal is completely absurd when I could be ‘alt-tabbing’ between a shrink wrapped application and browser of my choice to get the job done without surprises. I hate to be this forward, but…“Pull you head out of your asses and quit acting like technology elitists, you assholes!!!”

Dan Kennedy

P.S. Ohhh, wait a minute. You know what…I might have read that article somewhere. Okay…I remember what I meant to write to you guys. I just wanted to say I really love the piece called “I See These People Walking Down My Alley Almost Every Single Day” By Ned Peets. I loved it! No hard feelings about the mix-up!

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Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2000  
From: Dave Madden  
Subject: some news of which you may already have heard

Dear McSweeney’s,

An interesting story about wearing one of your cotton undergarments:

Last night I went out with some friends to one of those semi-chic dance clubs and decided to wear the cotton undergarment, under (but yet still visible) my dad’s old army-issue shirt. I had several fantasies about being all bored and hopped up on the watered-down-but-only-a-buck-so-‘salright drinks and some nice young lady either a) noticing the cotton undergarment, confessing an interest in McSwys, and the two of us reveling in our shared love in a city that isn’t all that up on the NY literary world, or (better yet) b) actually wearing same T-shirt and then everything in (a) happening just with an increased amount of shared enthusiasm.

Perhaps needless to say, none of this happened, and in the chic-est club in downtown Pittsburgh, the cotton undergarment went unnoticed. So this really isn’t that great a story, but here’s something pulled from this week’s Rolling Stone which, w/r/t your letters section of McSwys #3 and the funny and brilliant Fresh Step phenomenon, may prove interesting:

“You knew this was coming: **2Gether** , the first boy-band mockumentary, will air February 21st on MTV. It follows the fictitious group through auditions, dance lessons and the creation of tracks like ‘You + Me = Us (Calculus)’ and its ode to masturbation, ‘Rub One Out.’ VJ **Carson Daly** was on set in Vancouver to play himself. ’I’ve got to admit,’ he said, ‘this is not the worst band I’ve ever interviewed.’ The flick also features **Kevin Farley** , younger brother of Chris. ‘These guys are really talented!’ he said. ’I’m the only one that doesn’t sing. I’m the Milli Vanilli of the group.’”

So take that news however you wish to, and send my condolences to Rodney Rothman.

Dave Madden

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Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2000  
From: “Carman, Sean”  
Subject: cate warren’s interest in meeting McSweeney’s readers

Dear McSweeney’s,

Recently Seattle McSweeney’s loyalist and public transit denizen cate warren wrote to ask where she might meet other Seattle McSweeney-philes. She says she will do practically anything to meet them, except get a permanent tatoo or endure ritual square dancing (quite sensible, I say). Ms. warren also reports that although the men on Seattle’s public buses are charmed by her youth and beauty, their skepticism of her copy of McSweeney’s gives them away (presumably Ms. warren is referring to Issue No. 3, but she does not say). This makes her sad. Finally, she invites other McSweeney’s readers to milk and cookies in her private bomb shelter in the event of nuclear war (!).

My heart trembles at the thought of a post-apocalyptic race of McSweeney’s fanatics roaming the Northwest with milk and cookies. Clearly Ms. warren is more than a playful, articulate young woman hoping to meet like-minded souls. She’s a visionary. Like her I know of no McSweeney’s initiation ceremonies or public kiosks in Seattle, but her letter convinces me they are in desperate need. So I encourage Ms. warren to e-mail me right away at cosimo@mindspring.com so we can begin making plans to elevate our fine (and weird) city’s literary culture.

Sean Carman

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From: “Newhart, Bryson”  
Subject: I hate lies  
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2000

Dear McSweeney’s,

My doctor is a practical joker. Remember I broke my leg? That damn liar. All this crutching and moaning about armpit sores for nothing. Except for the girlfriend it got me. According to his letter, Mike Topp has a girlfriend too. Their plucky encounter with a flock of ravenous robot seagulls brings back memories. Breaking bones never used to be such a boon to my floundering pursuit of love.

Once in Atlantic City I broke my hip falling off the boardwalk onto a plastic cooler. All that day I had repeatedly pretended to fall from the railing with great success, other than a general lack of interest by the females. The owner of the cooler was a gritty man in a trench coat sitting alone in the shade chugging sodas. My appearance on his soda chest made it so he wasn’t alone anymore. I will call him Mr. Metal Face because part of his face was made from metal. Despite my pain, Mr. Metal Face thought I was faking it.

“Out to get frisky are you?” he said, kicking up sand with his combat boots as he leapt to his feet. He grunted, sniffed at the air, and cracked his knuckles. “Two can play at that game, Ricky.”

On my back like a crab, I squinted at this terrifying Mad Max character, angry that he had called me Ricky but much too frightened and hurt to say so. He narrowed his eyes and clicked his tongue, sunlight beaming off the metal portion of his face, digging in his coat for something with which to finish me off. I considered my achievements in life — there weren’t any — and prepared for death without any actual preparations. Then Mr. Metal Face produced a giant pair of fuzzy red dice.

“Usually I play alone in the bed of my pickup truck, but since you dropped in,” he said in an eager little girl’s voice. “Call it!” The dice were too large to shake in his trembling hands so he simply dropped them on the beach. I couldn’t turn to see the lie. I had lost all feeling below the neck. On the sky, a plane was writing an ad for “Joey’s Hot Buffet.”

“I might be paralyzed,” I thought. “If only I could have a steaming plate of macaroni and cheese steak gallimaufry .”

That’s when I noticed them, the seagulls in the air above the railing where I’d been standing only a minute before to impress another woman with my falling stunt. They were flapping around up there like little flying albino people, fighting over a slice of pizza that was far too heavy for them to hold in the air. In a second they dropped it, swooping immediately after, convinced it would now be lighter. The triangular silhouette fell in slow motion, rapidly pursued by a flutter of wings and feathers. I opened my mouth to catch it, saliva running down my chin, thinking, “Free pizza.” It landed instead on Mr. Metal Face’s head with a crisp wet splat.

In the same instant the surf crashed in for high tide. It lifted me slightly and carried me away on its ebb. As I drifted toward the sea, from the corner of my eye, I could see Mr. Metal Face in the distance beneath the boardwalk. He was splashing in ankle deep water, battling the birds for his soggy dice. “Fuck!” I thought. “That slice was mine.”

The girl I had been trying to impress was long gone, evidently unmoved by the recently crippled. She was probably on her way to Joey’s.

They say that a duck’s quack is the only sound that doesn’t have an echo. That, my friends, is goddamn lie.

My grandmother’s wig is made from human hair.

Yours,

Bryce Newhart

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From: “Robert Beier”  
Subject: From your office correspondent  
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2000

Dear McSweeneys,

Someone gave me a card at work. It was a big bookmark card. It was informing me that it knew “101 things to do instead of drugs”. Here are some of its suggestions:

Solve A Riddle, Watch A Sunset, Watch A Happy Video, Fly A Kite, Gather Seashells, Watch The Ocean, Watch The Clouds, Run Through A Field of Wild Flowers, Make A Poster.

What the hell were these people thinking? Are they insane? How in the hell is a 45 year old heroine addict going to stop using when his choices are “Care For Plants” or stop the dt’s with a rush that is 5 million times better than an audience with the Queen?

I also discovered, upon reflection, that all of the activities suggested would be much better if done after blowing a j.

Regards,

Bob Beier

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From: “Robert Beier”  
Subject: From your office correspondent  
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2000

Dear McSweeney’s,

This is a conversation I just had with one of my co-workers. We were standing at the 5th floor window.

Me: Don’t you think the light on that brick building is beautiful at this time of day? Have you noticed that? The way it makes the bricks stand out in relief. The light is fabulous.

Her: Do you want some coffee?

Me: But don’t you care about how beautiful it looks?

Her: No. Do you want some coffee?

Me: No, thanks. That sight is enough to sustain me.

Her: Jesus.

Regards,

Bob Beier

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Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2000  
From: Kate Fillmore  
Subject: Re: Purdy’s Celebrity sighting

Dear McSweeney’s,

I haven’t written to you since last fall when I bared my soul and told all and sundry about my wild crushes on the MR, the NFL Weekly Picks Man, etc. In fact, I was never going to write again, especially since your magazine has become so popular, and your new readers appear to be so much more interesting (by their letters) than I, that I thought it would be useless to write another letter.

But, this morning I read with great interest the letter sent in by M. Ryan Purdy. I, too, saw Robert Urich, and I too, failed to mention it to anyone. But you reminded me of the sighting, and I think that by sharing the sighting with others, as you have done, and now I am doing, we can stop blaming ourselves (or the celebrities we have sighted) for not sharing the sighting when it may have impressed our friends and co-workers.

You see, I think part of my problem (and perhaps yours too M. Ryan) is that I suffer from being what I might call an Anonymous Celebrity Sighter. Many years ago, when Urich was actually seen on t.v. with some regularity, we were in the same movie theatre together – I believe it was to see “Terms of Endearment”, here in Toronto. He was sitting in front of me, and I accidentally spilled buttered popcorn on him. Not a lot, but enough to make him think I had done it on purpose, which I had not, as I had no wish for his attention or autograph. He turned in his seat to check out what the heck was going on, I guess to see if I was a celebrity hound. I was sincerely apologetic, and he ended up smiling and saying “That’s ok”, or something like that. In any case, I never told anyone about it. Until now.

So allow me to unburden myself with the other Celebrity sightings I have had over the years:  
1999 – 3 sightings of Gene Wilder, all within 2 days  
1999 – Graham Kerr – The Galloping Gourmet, in an elevator – we talked about butter, yes we did.  
1999- Michael Moriarty – of Law & Order fame – I believe he was very tipsy and was talking to a person who had one of those tiny hairy dogs on a leash  
1998 – one of those super good looking LA guys on one of those shows like Melrose or 90210 – don’t know his name,have no idea. Asked him, in an elevator if he wanted a stick of Trident cinnamon gum. He did not. He had dirty laundry with him  
1998 – Walter Matthau – some celebrity hound near me yelled out Mr. Matthau’s name and he turned and waved in my general direction, as the celebrity was standing in my vicinity.  
1998 – Andrea Martin – helped her read the amount of the parking infraction she received  
1996 – David Foley of Talk Radio, Kids in The Hall fame. We spent the afternoon walking around Toronto’s Riverdale Farm with our small children in tow, talking about parenting (yawn).  
1983 – John Candy – I was working in a department store and he came to my counter and asked me where “personal electrics” were kept.

I could go on and on, but to what avail? I feel better having made a short and incomplete list here and will not bother worrying about being an anonymous celebrity sighter anymore. Especially knowing that there are others like me out there. Put your walkman on M. Purdy, and don’t look up – then you’ll be less likely to spot any of those celebrity types, and won’t have to remember to forget to tell anyone about it. Katy Fillmore, Toronto

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From: “Dan Kennedy”  
Subject: LETTER TO EDITOR FROM READER!!  
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2000

Dear McSweeney’s,

How about an inventory of what’s in the small cupboard to the right of my fridge (When your facing fridge)?

CONTENTS: Nothing in this one.

I keep that one empty. Sorry, but I can’t arrange my whole goddamn household a certain way just so your readers will have something to read and poke their noses into when their bored.

Dan Kennedy  
NYC

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Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2000  
From: SK  
Subject: Parcells’ Nickname

Dear McSweeney’s,

Ann Courgage wished to know the origins of Bill Parcells’ nickname “The Tuna.” Very well: when Parcells was linebackers’ coach for the New England Patriots back in 1980, during a rather strenuous drill one of his charges complained that he (the player) was injured or sick or something, so that he could no longer continue. Parcells snarled back, “That’s bullshit! Whaddaya think, I’m that gullible? I ain’t Charlie the Tuna!!” referring of course to the hapless Star-Kist pitchfish who’s always foiled in his attempts to get himself canned. (As opposed to Parcells, master of the strategic resignation, who always leaves on his own terms.)

I must leave it to others to decide whether this bit of backstory is germane to the poetic analysis in question, however, for I am afraid any criticism I offer may reveal more about my disdain for the Tuna himself than actual insight into the poem’s meaning.

Recusingly,  
Sean Kelley  
Somerville, MA

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Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2000  
From: Amie Barrodale  
Subject: A Response to “Daniel Casey” or “Casey Daniel” or what have you

Dear McSweeney’s,

I was on the phone with my mother last night. I was asking her how it happened that my Uncle Gremmie lost the one love of his life when gramma grounded him. At forty. If you’re reading this, Grem, forgive me. AT any rate, the circumstances that surround Grem getting grounded at some forty-odd years aren’t so interesting as the fact itself, and mom and I soon switched to ‘how it was Devin and I stopped being friends.’

Devin was my hyperactive best friend when I was four or five. HE was the son of my Uncle’s would-have-been wife. Apparently one night, he told my mom she had to ‘put up with him’ if she wanted to ‘stay friends with his mom.’ See, he was assuming my mom’s got it all upstairs and wouldn’t fight dirty with a four year old. Well. Mom called that bluff. She said “you’re wrong about me, I don’t like you’re mom that much,” and called his mom + told her to come get “the SPEEDY little ASSHOLE.” (!)

Oh, and, Casey Damon Damon Affleck, I don’t understand. Are you Sam Stark? You’re Sam Stark, aren’t you? I’ll need proof you’re not Sam Stark before I respond in any capacity.

Amie Barrodale

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From: Matt Fritchman  
Subject: Several Observations, Largely— but not entirely— in Reverse Chr onological Order, that Occurred to Me While Reading the Letters.  
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2000

Dear McSweeney’s,

1) Libby Cox gets to say “asshole” in her letter. If she gets to swear, we all get to swear.

2) “Ann Courgage” would be a much, much cooler name if it were in fact “Ann Courage”. Or even, “Jack Courage”. Or “Rock Chestwell”.

3) Therefore, the sequel would be called “Again, Annoyance with Biggie”. (See previous letter.)

4) “Daniel Casey” has it all wrong.

5) In the movie “Flash Gordon”, I believe that it is the “Jets” that “Flash” plays the football with. So let us not rule out the influence of “Ming” on these insidious “Belichick” maneuverings.

6) To the best of my knowledge, there is no “Flash Gordon” cheat code in Madden NFL 2000.

7) One time, I thought I saw a Gavin McLeod, who was on the original “Love Boat” program. But it was just a guy.

8) Monkeys hate clowns, and vice versa. Let us imagine the calamity that would occur if orangutans ever were in charge of the Amtrak Coast-to-Coast Bo-Bo Red Eye.

9) Did you know there were “Cigarette Dogs” in WW1? They would roam the trenches with a small steel drum of cigarettes around their necks, valiantly allowing “our boys” to smoke long after their own supply of cigarettes had run out. Say it with me now: “Why are their no commemorative stamps, or coins, statues, or fountains to pay tribute to our noble cigarette dogs?”

10) Bob Beier gets to say “Jack-Ass”. Mark my words: after this, the ass deluge.

11) It now occurs to me, out of chronological order, that Bob Beier used some other swear words in another letter. Who cares?

12) While playing “Scrabble” once, I spelled “asbestos” off of the letter “s”, simultaneously using all of my tiles (fifty-point bonus!) and hitting the triple word score. Final Score: Me: 84,263 Jenna: 155.

Thank you for your time and consideration in these matters,

Matt Fritchman America’s Sweetheart

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Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2000  
From: (John Warner)  
Subject: This is the sort of thing that concerns me…

Dear McSweeney’s,

I know I’m not the only one saddened by the retirement of Charles Schultz because I saw Katie Couric and Matt Lauer (or was it sexy Ann Curry) wiping away tears after Al Roker’s very emotional interview with Charles Schultz conducted after he announced his retirement and the end of Peanuts. I’m pretty certain the tears were real because they all strike me as genuine people, not like that Diane Sawyer, who I’m pretty sure crawls back into her crypt after each show.

But that’s not what concerns me.

What concerns me is the Chicago Tribune’s apparent struggle with displaying the “classic” Peanuts strips, starting with panels from 1974. It is apparent after viewing the first week of these “classics” that comic strips used to be larger.

At first, The Tribune tried to run the four-panel strip at the width of the current strips, however, due to the original (larger) dimension of the “classic” strips, they were forced to ever-so-slightly squeeze the individual panels. The result was a distortion of Charlie Brown’s tradmark round head into something closer to oblong. I won’t get into the clear artisitic, aesthetic and symbolic importance of keeping Charlie Brown’s head round (see LaRue’s article “The World In His Head, The World Is His Head: The Hermeneutics of Charlie Brown” in Vol. VIII, Number 8 of The Journal of Comics and Cartooning for the best overview), but suffice it to say that an oblong head on Charlie Brown clearly diminishes Charles Schultz’s cartooning genius.

Today, I noticed that The Tribune has tried something different, namely shrinking the panels along both dimensions, length and width. While this has returned Charlie Brown’s head to its intended, round shape, Peanuts is now the smallest strip in the entire comics section, thus diminishing Charles Schultz’s cartooning genius in a different, yet significant way. Ask yourself, “should Peanuts really be smaller than Drabble?”

I imagine other newspapers across the country are having similar difficulties. Perhaps your learned readership could share any alternatives their local dailies have managed to come up with in order to maintain the integrity of Charles Schultz’s original artistic vision.

With thanks,

John Warner

\- - -

From: Matt Fritchman  
Subject: An observation.  
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2000

Dear McSweeney’s,

The German title of “Weekend at Bernies 2” is “Again, Annoyance with Bernie”.

Matt Fritchman

\- - -

From: “Sam Meyer”  
Subject: David Gergen does not appear in this letter.  
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2000

Dear McSweeney’s,

Today it rained, and the roads were slick. I was driving along Interstate 20 (eastbound, if you must know), and there was a broken-down pickup truck in the left-hand lane. I touched my brakes, but my wheels locked and my tires hydroplaned. (Why do British people spell “tires” with a Y? As in “tyres”? I can’t think of any other words in which the British spelling contains a Y where the American spelling contains an I. There are many words, however, where the British use an S where the Americans would use a Z (which the British pronounce “zed” in their endearing way), such as realise and civilize (though maybe they should be the other way round.)) Fortunately, no one was driving in the lane to my right, so I was able to swerve around the truck. I did not use my turn signal, though. My friend said “Jesus! Are you okay?” and my heart raced wildly all the way to the movie theatre, though I lied and said I was just fine.

Regards,  
Sam Meyer  
America’s Lovable Underdog

\- - -

From: “Mike Topp”  
Subject: Accident  
Date: Sun, 09 Jan 2000

Dear McSweeney’s,

My mom told me about a terrible accident she had the year before I was born where a drunk driver ran a red light and slammed into the side of her car. He had to have traction and never drove again. My mom said it was a lucky thing I wasn’t around then because the other guy plowed into the passenger side where I might have been sitting had I been born a year or so earlier.

Best,

Mike Topp

\- - -

From: “Mike Topp”  
Subject: Intuition  
Date: Sun, 09 Jan 2000

Dear McSweeney’s,

Is intuition what I think it is?

Best,

Mike Topp

\- - -

From: “Newhart, Bryson”  
Subject: letter to Jeff Johnson  
Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2000

Dear McSweeney’s,

Wads… That is perfect. I’d love to hear the unabridged account of your holiday bowling and scrabble scores.

In high school we used to load up our jackets with beer before going to Leisure Lanes at 3:00 AM and asking for the last lane. I once got a strike after doing a 360 spin in the air to an under-the-leg-toss. The ball landed in the gutter but bounced back into the lane at the last second.

On an unrelated note, my old pal Doug, who has a history of pissing his pants whenever he gets drunk and used to have the nickname Soggs, recently got fired from his slack-ass private school teaching job and rediscovered drugs. This after finally paying off a 30G gambling debt. As usual, he showed up long after the party got started. He arrived at about 2 AM in orange-tinted sunglasses and a black leather vest with his dealer, Skylar. Evidently they’d missed the big 2000 countdown doing key hits on 83 North from Baltimore. Some people at the party were dressed in tuxedos so Doug kept to the fringe, hoisting his own bottle of JD and adjusting his vest.

“Those vicious bow ties look like they might try to rape me,” he said more than once, rubbing his nose and eyes. Having recently seen Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, he kept affectionately referring to his dealer friend as “that black bastard” or “that black son-of-a-bitch,” saying things like “watch out for that black bastard, he knocked me out with a chicken bone and shoved a hit of e up my ass,” and, “those bow ties better mind that black son-of-a-bitch, I saw him eyeing the silverware.” Skylar didn’t seem to mind, but nobody was laughing either. People seemed to know what Doug was up to and were simply annoyed.

Later he played air guitar on a pool stick to early Fleetwood Mac while his dog almost froze to death in a cage in the back of his Honda hatchback. When he finally passed out on the floor, we put down garbage bags and rolled him on to them.

Happy New Year,

“Miami” Bryce (my old bowling name for the electronic scoreboard)

\- - -

From: “Robert Beier”  
Subject: From your office correspondent  
Date: Fri, 07 Jan 2000

Dear McSweeney’s,

I was getting my morning coffee at my usual haunt when something happened.

I’d like you to understand that this place must’ve been set up by someone who’d been fired from their city job. The coffee carafes are lined up by both registers creating an awful traffic jam of surly morning people who, if given a choice, would never see the morning. They would wake up around 10, saunter into the kitchen and make a pot of coffee that they don’t have to fight anyone to get to. Also, the coffee would be close to free when compared with the $1.40 one has to spend for a large. They’d read McSweeney’s and chuckle to themselves or sit back and ponder. Then they’d pour themselves a cup of joe and think something, something important and earth shattering. They’d weep into their coffee and it would taste divine.

This scenario wasn’t happening for me this morning. I was paying too much for a decent cup of coffee and getting jostled in the process. After filling my cup, I walked over to the place of sugar and reached over to get two packets. The woman next to me glared. Oh, yes she did. She hated me.

She hated everything about me. She hated my hand especially. Why? Because it was in her space. Not in her way, mind you. In her space. You know what I did? Do you know what I wanted to do for just a moment? Of course you do. Things would be much more interesting if we all did what we wanted to do for just a moment. I wanted to grab her wrinkled, powdered face and say, “You know what, bitch”….no, no, I would say BEE-ATCH, she would hate me even more I’d be identified with the lost generation. “You know what BEE-ATCH? You gots to settle down!” Then I’d push her out the door by ramming gently into her all the while saying, “I’m sorry am I in your way?”

My compassion and good sense won out and I put the mind trick to the test once again. I looked at her and genuinely smiled at her. I smiled not because she made me happy but because she deserved a smile. I smiled because I thought this world is an amazingly weird place. I said, “good morning to you.” Immediately the anger left her eyes and she became confused. See, she was expecting me to return her venom and when I didn’t she was completely disarmed. She mumbled, “morning”. It works. It always does. I think we all should learn this trick. You always win and the person that was mean is left feeling a little stupid for being such an ass and not being gracious.

This reminds me of a time when an office man was being a jack-ass.

Here is the dialogue:

Jack-Ass (very mean voice): Whose faxes are these?

Me: I don’t know

Jack-Ass (glares): Why don’t you do something with these?

Me: They’re not mine

Jack-Ass (screams): I told you not to leave your faxes here!

Me (standing up from my chair): Why are you being so mean?

Jack-Ass looks at me in astonishment and frustration and throws the faxes onto the floor and walks away. Ten minutes later he walks over and picks up the faxes and takes them to the person to whom they belonged.

Regards,

Bob Beier

\- - -

Dear McSweeney’s,

I present to you:

THE INVENTION OF THE CENTURY

I would like to take this time to pay tribute to what I think has been the greatest invention of the 20th century. From cars and airplanes to phones, radio, television, computers, satellites, etc., never before has man, in so short a period of time, etc., been able to seemingly make the world smaller, while at the same time, put such a strain upon our etc. etc.. Surely the task of choosing one invention etc. etc. stands out etc. etc. etc. above all others etc. etc. no easy task, etc. but that is why I feel it is necessary to pay tribute to the orangutan.

Invented in 1903 by renowned Socialist Eugene V. Debs, the orangutan was initially created to shovel coal on locomotives and other steam powered vessels. However, with the nation’s eventual transition to electricity, the need for orangutans waned just prior to the Great War. The United States military tried to develop an orangutan infantry to fight in the French foxholes, but this met with inconsistent results. Thus, the orangutan, by the 1920s, was viewed as nothing more than a relic of the past.

It wasn’t until the late 50s that the orangutan began its comeback. It was around that time that the legendary filmmaker Elia Kazan realized that orangutans, given their opposable thumbs and pleasant demeanors, could be of great value as cameramen, in particular for hand-held shots. Thus, orangutans would enjoy moderate success behind the camera in the 60s on through the late 70s. But in 1978, a marvelous thing happened to the orangutan. In that year, a young director and the veteran actor Clint Eastwood teamed up to make Every Which Way But Loose, introducing moviegoers, and the world, to the orangutan as actor. Its success was felt immediately. And in its wake, a long line of cinema classics from Going Ape to Dunston Checks In.

Now orangutans are as popular as ever across the world, and look to play an important part of the 21st century.

Thank you,  
Brian Margolies

\- - -

From: “Mike Topp”  
Subject: The Beach  
Date: Fri, 07 Jan 2000

Dear McSweeney’s,

My girlfriend and I were at the beach when she commented on how appealing she found a seagull that was eating nearby. I told her that it wasn’t cute, that it might not even really be a bird.

How come there’s only one game called Monopoly?

Sincerely,

Mike Topp

\- - -

Date: Fri, 07 Jan 2000  
From: Padraic Duffy  
Subject: desperate for corroboration

Dear McSweeney’s,

I have always been a fan of the idea that there is a room inside my head larger than the one in which I sit; and I am a firm believer in the theory that sunshine is made of bumblebees. These I accept as facts, insofar as they meet certain evidential scientific requirements. Now as proof of these postulates I could cite my belief that the parietal lobes have a certain up-til-now undiscovered floral nature, or the belabored metaphor of the eye as window, keeping in mind the monumental difference between eyes that are open and open eyes. But the real proof, at least in my mind, is that every thought I ever think is always accompanied by a subtle, sweet taste in my mouth. Now, I know what you’re thinking, he must be crazy, he has a test set of one. This set of theorems can only hold up if it can be duplicated (although I can’t for the life of me imagine something that can’t think, like a chair, ever having a sweet taste in its mouth.) So I am writing to discover if there are others like me. People with arrested hearts often taste copper; I just wonder if those with opposite conditions taste honey.

Excitedly waiting for responses,

Padraic Duffy

\- - -

From: “David L. Edwards, II”  
Subject: A Conspiracy  
Date: Thu, 6 Jan 200

Dear McSweeney’s,

How fortuitous my recent sally into the realms of other magazines! It was with a certain curious pride that I found the names of Neal Pollack and Jeff Johnson mixed up with The New Republic — and Tim Carvell wisecracking in Slate! My point is that I knew them from McSweeneys, and not through these other lesser, though usually more well-known, publications. It points out in a funny sort of way just the kind of influence now attributable to the invisible oneness that is Timothy McSweeney. Or, hey, maybe it’s just me. Bombs away,

David Lee Edwards, II  
Columbia, SC

\- - -

From: Ryan Purdy  
Subject: Celebrity?  
Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2000

Dear McSweeney’s,

I try not to write to you all that often, for fear of becoming a nuisance or something like a nuisance— because I realize that few like, or are tolerant of, a person who is constant and consistent in what amounts to tapping you on the shoulder repeatedly and saying something like, “Did you ever wonder why blah blah blah?” or “Isn’t it funny that blah blah blah?” and then waits for a response of some sort when you really (a) have nothing to say to the person; or (b) found their statement/question banal and not worth responding to; or © are trying to teach the person a silent lesson in how to behave in social situations, but I feel so perplexed by what happened to me yesterday, that I thought you should know, or at least might want to consider its implications. Please do not consider this a “tap on the shoulder,” as it were.

The events of January 5, 1999:

2pm: I leave my office after several long meetings, in order to peruse Sony Discmen (Discmans?)— a post-holiday gift to myself— at the nearby Lincoln Square Tower Records store. (I work off of Columbus Circle, at 59th Street and Ninth Avenue.)

2:10pm: As I cross the street toward the entrance of the store, I see what seems like a familiar face standing at the corner of 66th Street. I then realize that it IS a familiar face, although that of someone I do not know personally; it is Robert Urich (from TV’s “Spenser: for Hire”; “The Love Boat- the Next Generation,” among other things). He is standing there, as people do in the cold, looking around as if waiting for someone (a lunch date?), while simultaneously, I suppose, trying to retain his anonymity. I think that it will be exciting to tell people, both friends and co-workers, that I saw celebrity Robert Urich, as he is one of those celebrities that are both obscure (let us be a little honest) and famous enough to prove an interesting sighting.

2:12pm: I am at the Tower Records Portable CD Player rack, trying to comparison shop between brands and features. A Tower staffmember is replenishing the rack with new units, uncannily standing exactly where I’d like to stand so that I may get a better view of my options. He is talking to another staffmember, thus reducing the standing-room to almost nil, as it is a poorly planned-out store, especially this area.

2:15pm: I am intimidated by their presence, and by the fact that their conversation mainly has to do with the faults of those same units he is restocking, and all of the portable CD players in general. When I leave, Mr. Urich is nowhere to be seen.

2:18pm: I have completely forgotten my Urich-sighting.

c. 2:25pm: I return to my office and tell no one about who I saw (see 2:18pm).

8:30pm: I am talking with my friend on the phone, and still do not remember the Urich incident.

11pm: I realize that I saw Robert Urich today.

11:30pm: Talking the same friend on the phone, I mention nothing of the incident, as I have forgotten about it again.

This morning, around 9am, as I was coming into my office, I realized (again) what happened yesterday.

My question to you: is all of this due to my own problems with celebrity, or is it Robert Urich’s fault? What can be done to remedy this— if, in fact, it should be remedied at all?

Take care.

Yours, &c.,

M. Ryan Purdy  
Brooklyn, NY

\- - -

Date: Wed, 05 Jan 2000  
From: scott  
Subject: New York Jets=Niggling Yardstick Jimmy

Dear McSweeney’s,

I am writing regarding the recent bizarre head coaching controversy in the New York Jets organization. I submit to you, humbly, the following facts:

1) As of early November the Jets were 1-6 under a horrific pixie-ish replacement quarterback for the downed Vinny Testaverde, named Rick “Mirer.”

2) Following replacement after one “win” against the Arizona Cardinals, the New York Jets under the third-string quarterback, by the name of “Ray” “Lucas”, proceeds to allow the Jets to win the next 7 of 9.

3) The season ends at 8-8, and the very next day Bill Parcells retires, handing over control to “defensive coordinator” Bill “Belichick”, claiming he’ll “never coach again.” This immediately after the New England Patriots coach Robert “Kraft” calls the New York Jets to see if Belichick is available as a head coach.

4) The very next day “Belichick” quits as head coach, claiming there’s “too much uncertainty.” And, that he had no other obligation but to “pick up his kids at 4:00.”

5) Jets president Gutman then announces that there was no uncertainty at all, that things were very certain in the contract he signed under someone now deceased who was known as “Leon Hess.”

My theories, which explain all:

1) Rick Mirer was clearly a summoned imp. Vinny Testaverde “going down” at the beginning of the game was clearly the work of a perverse agent, most likely this Boris Yeltsin fellow, looking far in advance of his resignation as a way to influence world events through chaos theory. And look how it’s worked.

2) Bill parcells, a good witch, was able to rip the poisoned heart of Mirer out of his body. The husk of Mirer was now useless. The moniker “Ray Lucas” is, rearranged, Ly Sacuar, the known 14th century warlock burned in France. His activation re-energized the New York Jets.

3) New York Jets stands, really, for Niggling Yardstick Jimmy, the turtle-like creature that has been lugging an immense yardstick with which to measure all chance events. Once five “turnings” could occur, Niggling Yardstick Jimmy could transform back into his original form, the convenience-store legend James Pronzell.

4) 8-8 was too late, as engineered by Yeltsin and his Bolshevik Mirer. Mirer hence imploded.

5) “7 of 9” is also the name of a cyborg character in a Star Trek series.

6) “Belichick” is hiding the truth that his family recently discovered a hairy lump in the garden which is growing daily. Subsequent to this discovery, his wife birthed a litter of sparrows. These sparrows are, daily, singing television jingles. Hence the name “Belichick.”

7) Five “turnings” having occured, N.Y.J. is back in his store. He remembers none of this, of course, except for a vestigial tail.

We must right all wrongs.

Sincerely,

Scott Stein  
formerly of New York

\- - -

From: “Daniel Casey”  
Subject: Amie Barrodale  
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2000

Dear McSweeney’s,

Amie Barrodale makes several worthy points in her letter of January 1st. However, I would like to draw the Editors’ attention to a few relatively minor factual errors:

\- Ms. Barrodale was not eating pumpkin seeds. She was eating cajun-flavored sesame sticks.

\- Benjamin Anastas did not write “Diary of an Underachiever.” That book was written by Dean Ornish, MD. Perhaps Ms. Barrodale confused Dr. Ornish’s book with “An Underachiever’s Diary,” written by Melvin Van Peebles. Mr. Anastas is the author of “Eat More, Weigh Less” and “Bold Money: How to Get Rich in the Options Market.”

\- The park referred to in the letter as “McKaren Park” is, in fact, Gantry State Park in Long Island City. Ms. Barrodale does not live in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, as the letter would imply, but Astoria, Queens.

\- The person who gave Ms. Barrodale a ride was Azerbaijani, not Hungarian. He was eating chicken wings, and not pizza, and offered Ms. Barrodale packets of duck sauce rather than sausage.

\- Ms. Barrodale was not intoxicated. She was coming down with a migraine.

\- Ms. Barrodale’s roommate did not make a stir-fry with snap peas. The roommate made a salad with iceberg lettuce, shredded carrot, and sliced radish.

Regards,

Daniel Casey

\- - -

From: Philip Ryan  
Subject: Weekend at Biggie’s 2: The Same Thing… AGAIN!  
Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2000

Dear McSweeney’s,

I don’t know how plugged-in you are to the contemporary hip-hop scene, but certainly even you cannot have failed to notice the ghoulish parade of dead rappers being trundled about by their unethical colleagues like so much summer sausage. I refer of course to the book of lyrics by Tupac

Shakur, which is passed off as poetry and sits shamefacedly next to Jewel and Jim Morrison on the poetry shelf at Tower Books. Surely even you cannot easily dismiss the rising gorge of moral outrage at seeing a murdered singer’s lyrics paraded as a girlish flight of fancy! And to put the word “flower” in the title? Not in my house you don’t!

But to cut, sirs, to the chase: I require media credentials, a “press pass.” The reason? I will go on assignment for your esteemed and, I am told, well-thought-of publication to Justin’s restaurant, owned by “Sean” Puffy Combs. There he and I will speak in a back or possibly upper room in quiet, conspiratorial voices. I will convince him to buy my soon-to-be-completed screenplay, “Weekend at Biggie’s.” (The plot, I assume, can be inferred from the title. I expect the actual writing to take no more than four months.) Mr. Combs’s presence would be a tremendous boost to the picture, as would Ms. Lopez’s, and rest assured we would certainly find room for their songs on the soundtrack, if they wished. We could even release two soundtracks. You know how they do that sometimes?

If the movie idea is not right for Mr. Combs at this time, I will write an article for you. Possible highlights of this article would be:

Confirmation of the Combs/Lopez romance and engagement. Photo of Ms. Lopez (if possible.) Mr. Combs’s shocking pullout from “Weekend at Biggie’s” and good buzz about said film. Possible mention of Mr. Combs’s inability to catch a football that forced him out of “Any Given Sunday” in favor of TV’s Jamie Foxx.

Therefore please send press credentials immediately to Philip Ryan c/o General Delivery, Chelsea Station NYC, as I have been unable to penetrate Justin’s on my own, finding myself consistently left standing on the “dude line,” and the nights are growing colder.

Yours, Philip Ryan

\- - -

From: “Mike Topp”  
Subject: A Midwestern Romance  
Date: Wed, 05 Jan 2000

Dear McSweeney’s,

Tommy Bartlett’s Water Show was one reason to visit Wisconsin in the 1970s.

Another, better reason to visit the Dairy State during the me decade was to transport my underage girlfriend across state lines to have sex, far from the prying eyes of my self-made widowed mother and my teenage queen’s overly religious parents.

My fifteen-year-old girlfriend, Sandy Bezek, was a five-foot-two-inch miracle, a veritable corn-fed Eastern European-descended Barbie doll brought to life. She had large breasts, a tiny waist, broad hips and a rear end you could set a Coke bottle on. She accentuated her God-given white trash attributes with skimpy halter tops and skintight cutoff jeans that looked like they needed to be surgically removed. Scoliosis only exaggerated and heightened her appeal. The lateral curvature of Sandy’s spine threw into sharp relief her top and bottom, a sight guaranteed on hot July nights to turn the suburban fathers of Downers Grove, Illinois, into living, breathing Tex Avery cartoon wolves when I paraded her before them while they waited in line to get in to see “The Last of Sheila” or “Jaws.” Without being beautiful, Sandy’s face was a well-formed oval, with fine green eyes, to which my description hardly does justice. It appeared to me that a great deal of suppressed passion lurked in their expression, and I already began to think she would be a real bonne bouche if once we were left alone to our own devices.

There was the rub.

At the age of seventeen I already considered myself an expert in the acts of love. With a solid understanding of sex gleaned from the books in my mother’s underwear drawer (“The Joy of Sex,” “The Sensuous Woman,” and “Rex, the Hotel Guard Dog”) and my father’s old Playboys (Lola Falana, a black entertainer, was the first woman to bare her bush in Hef’s paean to literature, lifestyle and enormous hooters), I was quite sure of my own knowledge of Cupid’s art. Nevertheless, I felt Sandy and I needed more practice and certainly, more time alone.

Our lovemaking usually occurred in two places: 1) my blue 1976 Lincoln Mercury Capri with the brown interior or; 2) in the beanbag chair, also brown, in my split-level bedroom on the top floor of our house.

In the Capri, I’d already accidentally fingered Sandy to orgasm once in our local lover’s lane (Neither of us knew how this happened; Sandy convulsed spasmodically on my hand one Friday evening, ecstatically murmuring “What did you do, what did you do, what did you do,” over and over again to me after I’d blundered around “down there” for a half hour like a miner without a helmet light.). But one problem with making out in my car, as I saw it, was all my friends already knew where we did the dirty. One Saturday night good friend and class president Grant Runge posed as a homicidal lunatic and snuck up on us in the throes of passion. Screaming maniacally, Grant approached the car while Sandy’s shorts and underwear were around her ankles. This threw her and me into a tizzy; I immediately started up the car and drove away in a panic. The windows were so fogged up, however, that I couldn’t see anything—I drove right into a mailbox that exploded the windshield and rained popcorn glass all over my sophomore nymphet’s lap. Needless to say, our date that night went downhill from there.

Making out in Sandy’s house wasn’t an option, as her big-butted mother, no fool she, usually lurked within ten feet of us at all times. At my house, it was a different story, although impatient readers should already receive the tip-off that it was not an ideal trysting spot either. Our usual modus operandi was to ensconce ourselves in my bedroom (engaging the pushbutton “privacy lock”) and to go at it on the aforementioned sticky and brown beanbag chair. Brainwashed even before she was out of rubber bands by parents and church, metal-mouthed Sandy believed cunnilingus was “dirty,” so I usually resorted to the same sort of exploration of her body that I conducted in the bucket seats of my car, namely digital manipulation of her nether regions accompanied on my part by frottage (rubbing my erect penis on her bare leg until I came in a sudden white spurt). Certain movies, such as “The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz,” or the fulsome strains of the Electric Light Orchestra, might occasionally and mysteriously serve as the impetus for a clumsy 69. But we still hadn’t gone all the way.

Complicating our attempts at same in my bedroom was what we saw as my mother’s unreasonable efforts to burst into the room and near-coitus interrupt us in the midst of our dalliances. After one particularly fierce attack, in which my screaming mother repeatedly hammered on the door and claimed that she needed to see me “right now,” Sandy and I shamefacedly zipped up and I ventured out alone into the living room to face the music. My mother, seemingly unaware of the urgent needs of teenage boys everywhere, appeared oblivious to my demands for privacy, even when I punctuated one especially subtle plea for tolerance by throwing a heavy decorative table lighter through a wall.

Therefore, Wisconsin beckoned.

It wasn’t complicated. A Red Roof Inn in the Wisconsin Dells. My fake college ID. Some mint-flavored condoms, some “ribbed for her pleasure.” Kahlua and cream for Sandy, Red White & Blue for me. “Black Magic Woman” on the radio, followed by “Easy Livin’.” Neither of us smoked in those days. When it was over, we asked if the other felt anything.

It was better the next time, back in Illinois, back in Downers Grove, but not back in my beanbag chair, but in my squeaky trundle bed instead. Mom wasn’t home.

Goodbye,

Mike Topp

\- - -

From: “Tom McDonell”  
Subject: seattle city buses and other places to get acquainted  
Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2000

Dear McSweeney’s,

I noticed you get a lot of letters from Seattle and as a Seattle resident myself I was, quite frankly, shocked because every time I go anywhere in Seattle with my copy of McSweeney’s in hand I get disapproving glances (for instance, yesterday a strange man on the bus told me there were too many words and pictures on the cover and I could strain my eyes permanently, and why do that when you are young and pretty? he also asked if he could touch my hair and told me he’d meet me tomorrow, same time, same place…sigh). Where are all these McSweeney readers hiding? Is there an initiation ceremony I am missing? I will do anything to join, with the exception of permanent tattoos and ritual square dancing. Anyway, I should warn you that Seattle is a strange place, but if there were ever a large-scale nuclear bombing, I would invite all the McSweeney readers in the city to my bomb shelter for milk and cookies. They’re ok in my book.

cate warren

p.s.

perhaps you should send the m.r. to Seattle in order to familiarizing yourself with your general readership-i’m sure one of us would be willing to show him around

\- - -

Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2000  
From: Jimt Sherman  
Subject: locker room poetry

Dear McSweeney’s,

Your website indicates that you (McSweeney and spawn) are new yorkers, that you have a bee in your bonnet for literature, and you have a minor commitment to football.

I was hoping you could press-gang the mcsweeneys gang into helping and old woman who was a new yorker (lefferts blvd. born, erasmus-schooled), who studied literature (at pre-sixties barnard, no less) and who loves the jets (thanks to joe namath, who looked suspiciously like my late-husband, a sun-devil cornerback).

I am bothered by these poems lifted from a sports website today:

Text of a poem as read by Bill Parcells to his players Monday when he told them he was resigning as coach of the New York Jets (Parcells said the poem was “The Man in the Glass,” and that he did not know the author. The text of a similar poem, “The Guy in the Glass,” written in 1934 by Dale Wimbrow, follows the version that Parcells read):

When you get what you want in your struggle for self  
And the world makes you king for a day  
Just go to a mirror and look at yourself  
And see what that man has to say  
For it isn’t your father, mother or wife  
Whose judgement upon you must pass  
The fellow whose verdict counts most in your life  
Is the one staring back from the glass  
Some people may think you are straight-shootin’ chum  
And call you a wonderful guy  
But the man in the glass says you’re only a bum  
If you can’t look him straight in the eye  
He’s the fellow to please, never mind all the rest  
For he’s with you clear up to the end  
And you’ve passed your most dangerous, difficult test  
If the man in the glass is your friend  
You may fool the whole world down the pathway of life  
And get pats on the back as you pass  
But your final reward will be heartaches and tears  
If you’ve cheated the man in the glass.

“The Guy in the Glass” by Dale Wimbrow (1934):  
When you get what you want in your struggle for self,  
And the world makes you King for a day,  
Then go to the mirror and look at yourself,  
And see what that guy has to say.  
For it isn’t your Father, or Mother, or Wife,  
Who judgement upon you must pass.  
The feller whose verdict counts most in your life  
Is the guy staring back from the glass.  
He’s the feller to please, never mind all the rest,  
For he’s with you clear up to the end,  
And you’ve passed your most dangerous, difficult test  
If the guy in the glass is your friend.  
You may be like Jack Horner and “chisel” a plum,  
And think you’re a wonderful guy,  
But the man in the glass says you’re only a bum  
If you can’t look him straight in the eye.  
You can fool the whole world down the pathway of years,  
And get pats on the back as you pass,  
But your final reward will be heartaches and tears  
If you’ve cheated the guy in the glass.

Never mind the fact that the tuna (and if someone can explain to me why parcells has garnered this sobriquet, please do but not if it takes any time from discussing the above) is basically saying that even if there is no ‘i’ in ‘team,’ then ‘i’ must be a prefix….

I neither credit nor fault Mr. Lord Bill Byron Parcells for the subtle and admittedly uninteresting changes this little ditty endured over the years. The re-arrangement of stanzas I’ll leave to some Columbia or liu lit grad student to while away the hours of house arrest that is known vaguely as winter to us lucky denizens of Tucson.

What I want to know from you is:

Which is better, in the opinion of your mfa-honed critical abilities:

Some people may think you are a straight-shootin’ chum/and call you a wonderful guy

You may be like Jack Horner and “chisel” a plum and think you’re a wonderful guy

This is a wildly disparate interpretation of the poem, isn’t it? As my son says when he’s being “clever” (at family functions that he usually shows up late for and then wears out his welcome at the fridge, usually with the help of senior corona) I’m “rusty and crusty”, but this is far too loaded for me to sleep well this afternoon.

in the older version, i appreciate the image summoned by jack horner, not only in the way this poem attempts to seat itself with a longer, older, more established tradition of folk poetry, but also in the way we have another image aside from bill parcells looking in the mirror, which (unless he was played by young bert lancaster)is the opposite of compelling. “straight-shooting chum” has a certain euphony but “chisel” provides a harsh contrast of punctuation that is lacking elsewhere in the poem. “chum” is more appropriate for someone named tuna anyway.

But can you compare style when the two lines are so different in intent and content?

In one billiam shakespeare parcells is pursuing the notion of reaching worldly success without knowing thyself. hence the mirror. yet this supposedly introspective interpretation is then rounded-off with call you a wonderful guy, in other words, others are making the judgement about the object but the object knows differently

In the other, the jack horner of 1934 provenance is gleefully enjoying a windfall of fate and (mistakenly, as we are patronizingly informed by the “If…”-like and annoyingly anonymous narrator)thinking that he’s some how getting over on the world but is in fact driving on the soft-shoulder of self-respect. In other words, object has no idea of what’s valluable and is even, mayhaps, a little ethically challenged.

What’s your opinion? I was just steamed, but at this point I’m boring myself and that usually means it’s time for a nap.

thanks for listening! And as for all the complaints about that sensitive young man’s football picks, the spread is almost as bad as TV for football in this country.

happy new year,

Ann Courgage

\- - -

From: “Robert Beier”  
Subject: From your office correspondent  
Date: Tue, 04 Jan 2000

Dear McSweeney’s,

I’ve returned from my forced holiday. I’m back in the office, sitting here and wondering where the woods of Maine have gone to. I’m trying to remember that I’m still in nature. NYC is nature, it’s just slightly processed nature. Sort of like Cheese Whiz is slightly processed cheese. If I may keep going with this analogy I would like to compare NYC and Maine using cheese and an almost forgotten mathematical formula or something that I remember from a pointless test I took in school. Cheese Whiz is to Manhattan as aged Gouda is to Maine. True. Now, this is interesting on a not so apparent level that I will take you to right now if you care to read further. Aged Gouda can be bought easily in NYC and it is quite good, whereas in Maine one would be hard pressed to find a place to spend a lot of money on mould. Cheese Whiz can be obtained just as easily in both places. I’ll leave it to you to plumb the depths of these rich comparisons. I’d also like to share my Christmas vacation with you. Maine was New Years, couldn’t have been better. Standing out in the middle of the freezing night with the stars overhead (as opposed to the five or so stars one can see in the city, although stars of a different sort can be seen here but they aren’t as bright) and 8 of your friends banging on pots and howling like banshees. I was the one with the radio counting down the seconds. It was one of those radios that don’t need batteries. It can run on solar power or a wind up thingy. After we settled down a bit I turned the volume up and pretended to go through the dial finding nothing but static. This produced a mild interest and Mary took the radio and began diligently going through the dial. She came to a country station and held the radio over her head, twanging chords filled the dark, and declared, “Civilization isn’t dead! There is a bastion of hope!” We all laughed and went inside to the wood burning sauna and got naked and baked ourselves and then stood outside, bodies steaming like draft horses, and drank champagne. My time home at Christmas is a bit blurred. I feel that this is best expressed in an asynchronistic free form jazz odyssey of impressions and words.

Aunt Patty (as she smokes a very long and thin cigarette, her thick whiny accent following the tendrils of smoke): Bobby, I believe that there is nothing we can do about how long we live. We are gonna die when we are set to die. (she looks at me expectantly).

Me: Well, I believe that you are mistaken. We can influence how we live. We must take responsibility for ourselves instead of living in fear.

Aunt Patty (looking crushed, looking deflated, takes another drag and then says in a false peppy voice): I’m gonna have fun though!

End

Me (In a very loud voice, out of nowhere. There is a lull in the conversation about how rich my cousin is because he is the district manager for Airborne Express. Dad is scooping up the chipped ham dip with a ladle.): I GOT MORE RHYMS THAN JAMAICA’S GOT MANGOS! (Everyone looks at me. I stare and smile back and get up to pour myself another gin and tonic.)

End

Grandma: I will not have any of my Grandsons looking like a hippie. Do you have a comb? Why don’t you comb your hair?

Me: A comb hasn’t touched my hair in years. I don’t even own a comb.

Grandma: Ohhh, get out of here with you. You have such a handsome face and you ruin it by not keeping yourself neat.

Me: Chicks dig it, Grandma. My girlfriend loves it. She’s hot and she loves it.

Grandma: Get out of her with you. (She leaves and comes back with a comb.)

End

Me: Check this out. It’s a new publication called McSweeneys. It’s hilarious.

Stewardess: This type is small. How can you read this?

Me: The font’s Garamond. It makes the content funnier and smarter.

Stewardess (flipping to another page): There’s a typo, it should be ‘he’ and not ‘him’.

Me: Do you think we’ll crash?

End

Cousin Troy (Weighs 278 pounds and is a construction worker/bouncer. He is wearing black leather fingerless gloves): So there was this one guy. He sucker punched me and ran away. The next night one of my friends told me that he was downstairs on the dance floor. I went downstairs and kicked his fuckin ass.

Me: Wow

Cousin Troy: Yeah. He won’t fuck with me ever again. I think I broke his nose.

Me: Man, your tough

Cousin Troy: Yeah. Now he buys me drinks. He tries to kiss my ass and be my friend but fuck him. I take his free drinks but I’ll still kick his ass.

Me: Right on dude. Merry Christmas.

End

Grandma: Chad (Airborne Express cousin) bought me a Christmas present by himself this year. He can afford it now. He got it from Old Navy. What’s Old Navy? I want to know when people ask me why it appears on my fleece pullover.

Me: Old Navy is a huge retail store owned by the Gap. This is where the Gap sends all of the clothes they can’t sell. I’d never shop there. Let’s all look cool and wear the same clothes. Let’s all be original together.

My brother: Old Navy sucks

Grandma: This is beautiful. I love this fleece.

Me: Yeah, it’s really nice.

End

Me: Grammy. It’s so good to see you.

Grammy: Bob and Shaun and Judy and Jim.

End

I realize that I’m wearing a black pair of Old Navy jeans I bought when I first moved to the city. I thought they were a good deal. I laugh at the irony and crack a beer, then another, and then another, and another, and then get up on a ladder and decorate the Christmas tree. My brother is playing The Chemical Brothers and throwing the glass bulbs into the tree. When we’ve finished we both fall down and put our heads under the tree and stare up at the lights. Christmas is hard when someone that should be there is missing. Pretty lights and sparkling twinklies are a poor diversion.

End

Feel free to cut out the last part, I know it’s not funny but, damn it, things can’t be properly funny unless other things are properly sad, now can they?

Regards,

Robert (Bob) Beier

PS I have figured out, best case scenario, how I would like to respond to people when they ask me what I’m up to and how I’ve been doing. My eyes would roll up into my head and I would rise 3 ft. off the ground while flocks of crickets whirred.

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Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2000  
From: Matt Barker  
Subject: What gives?

Dear McSweeney’s,

Does it gall you that Oddi Printing’s web site lists among its North American clients Linotype-Hell but not McSweeney’s? Has Brooklyn moved? Has Hell? Regards,

Matt Barker

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Date: Tue, 04 Jan 2000  
From: “Elizabeth Cox”  
Subject: Retirement was unhealthy for my father

Dear McSweeney’s,

My father used to watch football and yell things at the television. Things like, “Go-go-go, you sunnuvabitch!” and “Christ inside, dontcha know how to punt, ya ding-dong?” These things were delivered with gusto, to be sure, but tempered with good humor and an abiding love of the game.

Now my father sits in his easy chair and yells things like, “What a asshole! That guy’s a asshole!”, turning purple and pounding on the doily-covered armrest. There are kernels of cheese popcorn stuck to his sportshirt. Gone is the underlying giddiness, the passionate commands to the coaching staff. “Dad,” I say, “he dropped a pass. I don’t think that makes him an asshole.” Then my mom brings him another sugar-free popsicle and we watch the second half in silence.

Respectfully,

Libby Cox

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Date: Mon, 03 Jan 2000  
From: scott  
Subject: My doors are largely blocked

Dear McSweeney’s,

I am writing to you as a communications experiment because you might be my only hope. As of recently windows and walls have been ceasing all my attempts at sending correspondence. Is this happening to you too? Perhaps you will never read this. If you do, it is largely because the windows and walls failed to respond.

Let’s keep together regarding this.

Sincerely,

T. T. O Niets

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Date: Sat, 1 Jan 2000  
From: “Carman, Sean”  
Subject: letter to the editor re: T-shirt of hurdler in mid-stride

Dear McSweeney’s,

The current T-shirt advertisement on your web site omits critically important information about the line drawing of the “handsome hurdler” in mid-stride. We are not told, despite the tantalizing adjective “handsome,” whether the hurdler is male or female, which might be a deciding factor for some prospective purchasers, and we are not told whether the hurdler’s presumably light nylon running shorts are modestly turned up, in answer to a gentle breeze, to reveal one of the hurdler’s butt cheeks, which would not be uncommon in such a rendition, and is the sort of fine detail that might burden a loyal McSweeneys reader with a nagging regret about her purchase, or, in the case of other readers, close the sale. Please advise.

Sincerely,

Sean Carman  
Seattle, Washington

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Date: Wed, 29 Dec 1999  
From: Michael Scott  
Subject: well, not much.

Hello from lovely Madison!

I am at work at the university, and out of boredom I decided to see if you have a web page. So, I typed in www.mcsweeneys.com and ended up with the most fascinating picture. I have never seen so much wholesomeness in one place, and I thank you.

I can get a 1998 issue of your wonderful magazine here at Pic-A-Book, but I was wondering if you published any this year. Next year?

Thanks and keep up the good work. Loved the New Yorker photo. Your editors are foxy, and your female editor seemed nice.

Michael Scott

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From: “Ruland, Jim”  
Subject: Jeff Johnson’s Gridiron Chums  
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1999

Dear Master Johnson,

Thank you for your kind gift. Regrettably, it was refused by the censor / receptionist at the front desk. Old Karl went on vacation last week and someone forgot to “have a talk” with the temp. Hopefully it made somebody happy.

I know you asked us not to think about you, but I’m afraid that’s no longer possible. Your quick reply and magnificent picks have put us all in a tizzy. I haven’t seen an uproar like this since Fred Exley was here in ’83.

Yours in spirit,  
Jim Ruland

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From: “Mike Topp”  
Subject: Broken Vase  
Date: Sun, 02 Jan 2000

Dear McSweeney’s:

I dropped a vase and broke it while listening to a record. So I just played the record backwards until the vase came together again on the floor and hopped up to my hands.

Thank you,

Mike Topp

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Date: Sat, 1 Jan 2000  
From: Amie Barrodale

Dear McSweeney’s,

I was eating pumpkin seeds with one eye open. I was slouched in the crowded train. I was intoxicated. There were noisemakers and winter coats. I probably did not look my best. Do you know who Benjamin Anastas is? He wrote “Diary of an Underachiever.” I was opening bag two of pumpkin seeds and I spotted him (Anastas) on the other side of the train. He was with a girl with longish dirty blonde hair. She had her hands on his hips. They were moving from Closer to Not-as-Close again and again. Does that make sense? They were weaving like a new couple. But maybe not. Then I was waiting for the bus. A Hungarian with one brown eye and one green let me eat sausage off his pizza. He had those little poles on his back tires. How long have you been waiting for the bus, he said. Forever, I said. I’ll give you a ride, he said. Okay, I said. It had misted, the street grease was just-moistened. The tires were doing that strange torque out-of-control waddling thing so I could feel the bike start to slip out from under us, and then not. We were going along at a cute little pace, past McKaren park and under the trees which were shiny with dew and I screamed at Polish people. The Hungarian began to pedal faster. I told the him not to kill us all. You’ll kill us all, I said. But it was no use. We’re on an incline, he said. Decline, I said, slope slant downward, down low, pit (I tend to talk this way when I get drunk). We are in a pit, I said, this is the pits.

I came home and ate the snap peas out of my roommate’s stir fry.

Good day,  
Amie

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Dear McSweeney’s,

Thank you! I was riding the express red IRT train (I can’t remember if it was a #2 or a #3) home from work and spotted a very attractive person reading your excellent publication. It was Issue #3. She seemed to be laughing at funny parts. I could not catch her eye, but I chased after her in the Times Square station (discreetly) and said, “hello, I noticed you were reading something interesting.” I managed to get her telephone number, and things went very well. Romance bloomed. And it all started with McSweeny’s #3! Actually, she claims I was “checking her out” even before she boarded the train and began to read, but I rememeber it differently.

The whole experience was worth about a million dollars. But I don’t have a million dollars. All I have is a submission for you to consider. But when I have a million dollars to spare, I’ll send it right along, if you want it.

That is not a bribe, by the way. I probably will never have a million dollars to spare. I guess it would really depend on how one defines “to spare.”

Here’s the beginning of the submission. The rest is an attached rft file.

David Rossmann