Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000
From: Sarah M. Balcomb
Subject: Drinks-a-go-go
Dear McSweeney’s:
The Roman Polanski: A British pint of Romana White Sambuca. No ice. Enjoy.
Have you ever wondered why your parties are dull? Why is it that when you meet in a dingy basement apartment to heat up the night, you always end up bored within 15.83 seconds? There is only one reason: too little fire at your parties. To cure this lack of smoldering, you could either torch your apartment or drink Sambuca.
Methods for drinking Sambuca:
1. The boring way
Take the Sambuca into your mouth, but don’t swallow. Wipe the outside of your mouth so none of the Sambuca is on your lips. Tilt back your head, open your mouth, have your “little friend” light a match and touch it to the Sambuca in your mouth. Wait until you can feel it burning (this is truly as dangerous as it sounds), then close you mouth. Shake it around, until the smell of burning flesh nauseates your friends, then swallow. This is the way my friends (with the exception of Stephen) and I consume Sambuca, and it invariably attracts attention. Try it at your local dimly lit pub, impress the indigenous peoples and have fun.
2. The traditional way
Set a shot glass of Sambuca on fire, put it out with a beefsteak tomato, then drink. This is the method described on the bottle and is supposedly the “right” way.
3. The cool way
Dilute with urine. Consume through a bendy straw. Makes a long and pleasant drink.
The best thing about Sambuca is that it combines three good things in one: you get stewed, have fun and set things on fire.
Bringing Roman Polanski to a party is an alternative way to “light up” the night.
Very best and warmest wishes,
Sarah M. Balcomb
Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000
From: Dan Kennedy
Subject: NEVER ASKING FOR DIRECTIONS
Dear McSweeney’s-
Somebody was standing next to me looking at magazine pictures of David Bowie’s beautiful and palatial house in Thailand this morning.
They said, “Sometimes I think heaven and hell are right here on earth and you get to choose where you want to go, but that it’s just easier to choose hell.”
“If you say so,” I quipped barely paying attention and continuing to type away.
I had to keep writing ad copy for the next eight or ten hours and then walk home in the rain so I could go meet my ex-girlfriend at a restaurant that I hate.
Dan Kennedy
New York, New York.
Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000
From: Justine Hermitage
Subject: Anniversaries
Dear McSweeney’s:
Seventeen years ago this month my family left the safe and naive existence of tract-house living. We moved into a house that was built in 1910. I hated it. I missed the modern conveniences of living in a cookie cutter development. I missed ET-land. That move marked a major turning point in my life. I was never the same girl again.
Thirteen years ago this month I went to Europe for my first time. It was pretty much like I was trapped inside one of Chevy Chase’s “Vacation” movies. It was “Nightmare European Vacation.” My parents told us, while we sat on the train to Venice, that they were going to get a divorce. I told them I didn’t care who got the house, but I would never leave it, or my friends at school. They never actually went through with it.
Ten years ago this month (maybe even this week), I lost my virginity. It was with a guy I had been infatuated with for about four years, and I just wanted to get the whole thing over with. It was not a night to remember fondly. We both fell off the bed and I vomited all morning while he lazily slept the day away. What’s done is done.
Five years ago this month I moved away from the Golden State of California—for good. My car decided to just sort of shut off in the middle of Highway 5, during a deadly heat spell. When I arrived at my destination there were no hotel rooms so my driving buddy and I had to crash at the home of the only guy I knew in the city—someone from high school. The guy lived with his frat brothers and they played Green Day all night. My friend and I sat in the car until we thought the coast was clear and then went and slept on the guy’s couch. The next day, my friend flew back home and I left frat boy’s place and stayed in a hostel/senior homeless shelter for four days until my apartment was ready for me to move in. The people living there watched the fuzz on the unreceptive TV in 105 degree heat, all day long. I try not to look back in anger.
Three years ago this month I moved into my first apartment (that wasn’t a sublet) in New York City. I thought it was a real “find.” Then my roommate moved in and we realized that we were living in a closet-less, mice-infested tenement, that comfortably fit one. Only recently are my ex-roommate and I even able to talk as friends, let alone laugh about those two years in hell.
That’s what I am celebrating this August.
All the best,
Justine Hermitage
Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000
From: Jon L. Fine
Subject: we could all fit in it
Dear McSweeney’s,
I’ve got a new car. It’s Japanese. Her name is “Super Lucky Car.” In Los Angeles we drive cars.
Jon Fine
Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000
From: Nate Pontious
Subject: Notes from the 12th Floor
Dear McSweeney’s,
It’s 8:45 AM. And this is the thing that I just can’t shake riding up, dink-dink-dink, 12 floors to my new job with suits and ties and skirts and attaché clichés in the middle of summer:
“So know one told you life was gonna be this way…”
The theme from “Friends.”
Great.
Damn it if I can’t get that song out of my head. I haven’t even seen TV, let alone that show, in months and months (I’ll venture a year). And here I am, surrounded by people in clothes and careers years ahead of me. Oh, I want to fit in. But then again, it’s not that hard. These people are all the same age as the Friends characters: mid-to-late 20s, similar job ambitions – some even have nice teeth. My God! I’ve stumbled right into a demographic.
Nate Pontious
San Francisco
Date: Wed, 2 August 2000
From: Gregory Purcell
Subject:There are mechanations.
Dear McSweeney’s,
To the People, and Others:
“The inappropriately named Generals Superbie and Bataille lasted respectively five weeks and ten days at the head of the 41st Division.”
I just read that. It’s from John Keegan’s The First World War. I’m also listening to Robert Grave’s Goodbye to All That, on my walkman, while I work.
Why am I reading/listening to WWI histoires instead of working? Because we have reached a “lull,” so says my boss.
“…hundreds of field mice and frogs had fallen into the trench, but could find no way out.” This, from Robert Grave’s proxy.
Very few of us are possessed of the type of courage which has been pressed to the state of absurdity. Except when we skateboard.
And I am,
Greg Purcell
Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000
From: Jeff Miller
Subject: movie mayhem
Dear McSweeney’s,
Here is my son Ben’s review of “The Perfect Storm”:
“Too much shouting.”
J. Mudcat Miller
Date: Thu, 03 Aug 2000
Dear McSweeney’s,
3 Alternative nicknames for dog, a wiry terrier with more spunk than he knows what to do with:
-Lil’ Bojangles
-Stumpy McGee
-Wendy
Yours,
KP
Date: Thu, 03 Aug 2000
From: William Yelles
Subject: too scared to sleep
Dear McSweeney’s,
I just woke up from a horrible dream in which I was eating lunch with Regis Philbin. He insisted that I call him “governor” as he scarfed down rhubarb pie, which I thought was odd until we left the IHOP and went outside, where protesters were staging a mass “Braveheart”-like battle against Regis, the evil leader of “The Republic of Texas.” The press in attendance wouldn’t let him speak. He was having a fit. Only Barbara Walters was willing to help.
I am more terrified than ever.
Eternally yours,
William.
Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000
From: L Stahl
Subject: Pork Rinds
Dear McSweeney’s,
Now, I know pork rinds are the hot snack food, due to a popular protein diet (also known as the insanity diet). But, I just learned something else:
Last year’s pork-rind sales grew faster than those of any other snack food in the salty snack-food category, except for jerky, with sales topping $420 million, according to the Snack Food Association (which is a group in Washington that keeps track of such things).
—Levi
Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000
From: Yoko Ito-Peterson
Subject: I am a Japanese journalist located in LA
Dear McSweeney’s,
Please allow me to introduce myself. I am a Japanese journalist located in LA. I would like to write a story about pork rind diets in the United States for Japan’s biggest health magazine, “Nikkei Health.” (Japanese people do not know anything about these pork products.)
Could you please comment on:
This high-protein and zero-carbo food – it is not really a healthy food.
What do you think about this phenomena?
Were you on this diet?
(Personally, I am not a big fan of this food.)
If possible, could you please write back as soon as possible? Thank you very much for your attention.
Yoko Ito-Peterson
Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000
From: Angel Izquierda
Subject: I am the doorman
Dear McSweeney’s:
I am the doorman at the Midtown office building where Sarah M. Balcomb works. This week, while surfing the net for found images for my next Wu Tang album cover, I came upon your site, and was horrified to read Ms. Balcomb’s missives about our fleeting encounters as she traipses to and >from work (she carries a briefcase; I don’t know what she actually does). To correct the record: I haven’t been asking her to “get open” with me; instead, she’s been pestering me about “getting to know someone real,” and “letting her in on the street scene” in connection with some novel she’s trying to write. I have no idea what she’s talking about. She also repeatedly mentions needing to learn how to skateboard to one-up someone named “Pasternak,” another mystery I have no intention of asking her to explain. Also, it was she who kissed me on the cheek, in an apparent attempt to endear herself that backfired horribly but at least kept her at a distance for several days. The women on the subway were Croatian, not Latino, and the medallion on my silver necklace is of a chrysalis, not a seahorse.
Peace,
Angel
Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000
From: Pascover, Alex
Dear McSweeney’s—
Please inform Jeff Johnson that some of us are big fans of the weekly NFL picks, and also that he did considerably better than the $3.95 a minute hotline that I consulted throughout most of last season.
—Alex Pascover
Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2000
From: Newhart, Bryson
Subject: “The doorway to all freedoms is framed by muskets.”
Dear McSweeney’s,
The eternal verities circa July 2000:
Tight radio-friendly acoustic rock from Sweden.
Custom transformers, chokes, reactors, rectifier assemblies.
Lord Kenbo.
Capacitors and rectifier assemblies.
Japanese clog.
“Clog is good for health!”
Repetition of the words “from Sweden.”
Certified respectful chimney technicians.
“In some meaning, to put on clog is sports training to build up balance sense.”
Dimple-style baseballs and softballs.
“Laffin’ Sal.”
Pole protector pad.
Big-Ass Donkey.
Pure unadulterated terror.
Pitch elevation indicator lamps.
Chew Chew the carnivorous robot.
Charlton Heston.
Monchichis.
Thanks,
Bryce
PS. Can I say hi to Pete Latshaw? We went to high school together.
Date: Fri, 04 Aug 2000
From: robin busch
Subject: a list
Dear McSweeney’s,
Six eighties band names inspired by my recent (required) enrollment in a course on first aid and cardiopulmonary resuscitation:
shock signals
rapid pulse
sudden illness
fatal sting
quick relief
loose dressing
robin busch
new york new york
From: J.L.
Subj: Steegmuller, Greene, &c.
Dear McSweeney’s (and particularly the M.R.),
Here’s this, from Francis Steegmuller’s portrait of Graham Greene, GREENE ON CAPRI:
“Indignation that would not be roused by a degree of industrial wealth no novelist could ever envisage will regularly be directed at the prosperity of a gifted writer. And Graham Greene, since his death, has been rebuked by commentators eager to demonstrate that, in his having caused millions of readers to buy his books throughout half a century, and having profited from that seemingly harmless transaction, he had relinquished his immortal soul. Creative writing, which, alone among the arts, seems delusively accessible to every articulate person, has immemorially attracted that confusion of esteem and envy, centered on the independence in which it is conceived and composed: a mystery of originality that never loses fascination for the onlooker.”
in fond sympathy,
JL
Date: 31 Jul 2000
From: Chris Packham
Subject: begging for less malice
Dear McSweeney’s,
Harper’s? Are you serious? Well, my tendency is to take sides on issues, and I believe I’ll take yours. It seems to me that alienating a talented young author of no small acclaim smacks of bridge-burning. Particularly given the personal nature of the material with which they did it. I’m very disappointed to hear about Harper’s severe and surprising lack of editorial propriety.
And you actually spend major time in Iceland? Wow.
Looking forward to the next issue of McSweeney’s. Hope this finds you in good stead.
Sincerely,
Chris Packham
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2000
From: PAOZOLS, ALEX
Subject: Ask MR
Dear McSweeney’s:
I worked in the world of public relations once upon a time and when one of our clients would get mentioned in the media we called it a “hit.” There were, of course, good hits and bad hits (all of which we documented in slick, white 3-ring binders filled with plastic sheet protectors). But, nevertheless, there was our client being mentioned. So, there are devious and artful ways of using the bad hits to one’s advantage. Sometimes our client would request that we contact the media and ask them why our client had been portrayed in such a bad light. Other times we would just blow them off. In my opinion (and my old boss would get like $250 an hour to formulate such opinions) is that now McSweeney’s is in the public eye to the degree that some lit mags only dream about. You have a responsibility to your reading public to be what you are and not what somebody else (such as Harper’s or the .org web site) says you are. David Bowie recently said in an interview that he resented “polite” criticism of his work and prefers good or bad words—anything that streams from raw reaction to his music. To acknowledge your “bad hits” points to something you recently said about the .org web site: “And here we are, giving the creator of the .org site exactly what I guess he wants: attention.” You are giving them hits if you mention them in the future. I say blow them off. Sorry, this isn’t a question. Hope the new issue comes out soon, I’m finished with my latest copy of Z Magazine already.
A friend of Neal Pollack’s,
Alex Paozols
Date: Tue, 01 Aug 2000
From: Joel Tompkins
Subject: Iceland
McSweeney’s,
I came to the web site today to look into using McSweeney’s name to get an interview with a Russian female pole vaulter I saw on NBC the other day and perhaps send some legitimate dispatches from Sydney. I have no reason to think you would be interested in facilitating this, no connections to the magazine except for having watched Kevin Shay perform at Brown University with my roommate in the improv comedy group Improvidence.
My goal, for now, has changed though. I’ve recently returned from living in Iceland for some time, and I thought I would send a recommendation to David Eggers, if he’s still there and someone in the office is inclined to call or fax him. In the letter Harper’s reprinted, he says he likes to say yes, and to that kind of person I like to give suggestions. On the way from Reykjavik to Gullfoss and Geysir, in Reykholt, there is a new pub that I helped build called Klettur. The young family there is incredibly friendly, and they run the nearby youth hostel. If he’s interested in geothermal vegetable growing they’ll show him their beautiful tomatoes; he and guests can dip in the geothermal pool, have a pint, get a view of Mt. Hekla, “the jaws of hell.”
Couldn’t resist sending a tip; I do not know Mr. Eggers, but I also don’t know anyone else in Iceland to make suggestions to.
All my best,
Joel Tompkins
Date: Tue, Aug 1 2000
From: Julie Westphal
Subject: It all comes down to plain ol’ enthusiasm for something I thought was terrific
Dear McSweeney’s,
Ok,
I found out about mcsweeneys.net from a small article in Interview magazine last fall. After checking out the website, I ordered back copies of #2 & #3, and a one year subscription.
I thought they were incredible, I told everyone about them.
That’s all it was, pure enthusiasm for something I thought was truly terrific!
I’m sorry for all the publicity woes, and by being a fan, I guess I help create those, but I will forever buy McSweeney’s published books, and I sent Neal $1 the day he asked.
Thank-you,
Julie Westphal
Portland, OR
Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000
From: Grant Barber
Dear McSweeney’s,
Weird things will happen. You’ve had your say about the whole Harper’s thing. Let them read the book. It’s clear that you wrote it with integrity.
Because you’re basically a good guy you want to defend yourself. It’ll stir the pot though. Take a deep breathe, relax and let it go. Looking quite forward to the new McSweeney’s.
Grant Barber
Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000
From: Bryan Charles
Subject: An Awesome Dream/A Web site/Photographs
Dear McSweeney’s,
I recently had a dream about one of my high school girlfriends. It was awesome. I woke up and was going crazy and thought, “Now I must talk to her. She’s married now and I haven’t heard anything from her in years, but I don’t care because of my awesome dream.” I called some people and got her number and left a long, rambling message on her answering machine. I did not leave my number. So what does she do? She calls my mother to get it. She tells my mother that she’s married and everything and that the wedding pictures are posted for all to see on a web site called kocis.com. That’s her last name now. Kocis. Then she calls me and leaves a message on my voice mail at work that ends with, “Next time you call someone, you should leave your number.” I never called her after that, but I looked at the pictures on the web site. They all have great titles. She looks much different now. The first time we kissed was on a dock, at night, before a big, beautiful lake.
Fondly,
Bryan Charles
Date: Mon, 07 Aug 2000
From: Darren Higgins
Subject: 26
Dear McSweeney’s,
It is my birthday today. August 7. I thought you might want to know in case you were not planning to take me out to dinner. Or perhaps you were thinking that you wouldn’t make me a cake. You must be relieved to know that you can. You can take me out to dinner. And it would be just fine for you to make me a cake.
Thank you. You are too kind.
Darren Higgins
Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000
From: Sam W Stark
Subject: What To Do With A Pig
Dear McSweeney’s,
Yoko, I sympathize. Who besides a Spaniard would know that only the finest cured legs of ham come with the hoof attached?
I live in New York, but have been fascinated for some time by an hor d’oeuvre called “rumaki,” apparently most popular in the Midwestern and southern parts of our country.
I have seen this dish described as “Hawaiian,” “Chinese,” “Japanese,” and sometimes as just plain “Oriental.” My guess is “none of the above”; still, the “dry mustard mixed with water to moisture” sounds suspiciously (to me, albeit a relatively naive Westerner) like your Japanese “wasabi.” Does the word “rumaki” mean anything to you? Have you ever heard of such a dish in your own country, or any dish of which it might be derived? For that matter, are you familiar with any Eastern dishes with liver, or with bacon?
Thank you in advance for your help,
Sam Stark
New York City
Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000
From: Dan Kennedy
Subject: JUST SAY IT
Dear McSweeney’s-
In response to Trina Brown’s letter in which she solicits readers’ experiences with parents who invented cutesy names for genitalia: My parents were also uncomfortable with the word “penis”. I am a man who grew up having something called a “John Nagy” between my legs. Coincedentally, that was the name of the man that lived next door to us that my mom was not too fond of. My father openly criticized my mother’s lack of parenting skills and took me aside one afternoon in 1977 to have a talk with me. He was kind and direct, making it perfectly clear that he and I had what every other healthy male had down there…a “Jimmy Carter”.
Finally getting it-
Dan Kennedy
New York, New York.
Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000
From: JulieWestphal
Subject: pork rinds
Dear McSweeney’s,
When I was growing up, my brother & I longed for potato chips, and all my mother ever bought were pork rinds. We hated pork rinds.
Thank-you,
Julie Westphal
Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000
From: Bill Fisher
Subject:Note from Iowa City
Dear McSweeney’s,
The undergraduates return to town like those little birds in California who return in large numbers to that one place at some point. (Spring? Spanish Mission thing?) Shitting flocks of noisy flapping creatures.
As the birds/students arrived, we older and less-fortunate people sat on a weedy lawn and drank Old Style. A going-away party. A bittersweet occasion—some arrive, some depart…
We sat until 5AM. It was too late. We importuned strangers. They were asked (who did the asking?) to join us. Special people walk around alone at night in our town. They all had drugs, or Jim Beam.
There was a woman. How did she get there? She has a Romanian boyfriend. This did not deter me; the boyfriend was in Romania. I contrived to walk her home. She was breathless, constantly sighing nervously as I charmed her. Later, I judged that it must have been the Old Style, prompting the sighs. Alas…
At home, I thought that the evening had been horrible, no, wonderful. Sunday, there was a storm.
She gave me her telephone number. She wrote it on a wrinkled scrap of paper and pressed it into my hand. It was the first time anyone had ever done such a thing—I was in awe. I think I laughed, a bit too loudly, and said something like, “Ah, what do we have here!?”
Was this the right way to respond? Is this kind of thing the whole source of my difficulties?
With regret and perverse hope,
Bill Fisher
Date: Tue, 08 Aug 2000
From: Christina Nunez
Subject: Paul Collins
Dear McSweeney’s,
While searching for a release date for Paul Collins’ book about losers, I found several titles that have nothing to do, directly, with losers. However, it seems that the Paul Collinses of the world are writing about very interesting subjects, judging by these Paul Collins book titles from Amazon:
Introducing Candlemaking
British Motorcycles Since 1900
Dangerous Waters
Oracle8 DBA : Database Administration Exam Cram
Small Garden Design
Administration for Development in Nigeria : Introduction and Readings
Tricksters
The MUP Encyclopaedia of Australian Science Fiction & Fantasy
British Car Factories from 1896 : A Complete Survey
Education in Ontario : 1980-2005, scenarios on the future
Exploration Canada
Gerald R. Ford : a man in perspective
The government in exile and other stories
Hart Massey
God’s Earth : religion as if matter really mattered
Mixed Blessings : John Paul II and the Church of the eighties
Papal Power : a proposal for change
I wonder if any of these is the McSweeney’s-published Paul Collins? Or maybe McSweeney’s would like to undertake a Paul Collins imprint, since many of the above books are out of print?
P.S. For the love of God could someone please tell me again when is Paul Collins’ book coming out?
Thanks,
Christina Nunez
Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2000
From: Steven Tomsik
Subject: funnels
Dear McSweeney’s,
I want to know did you ever in high school do beer bongs. I did. Some people’s high schools called them “funnels” but to me that is simple. For simpletons.
You know. The funnel, the tube! You pour the beer in and raise above head and open throat. And invariably someone claimed to do a beer bong with Jack Daniels or what have you but I believe they lied.
No one could do that. Maybe Angus Young could do that?
Bro,
Steve
Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2000
From: Karl Tobias Steel
Subject: Peculiar Things to Say and Do
Dear McSweeney’s,
I just returned from a week in Philadelphia. That has nothing to do with this letter.
Three peculiar things:
A man, accused of slaying two in a real-estate scam gone fouler, alleges, “Murder is outside my scope of realm.”
This correspondent, shoved at a rock show where he should not have been shoved, yells, “No one wants to touch you! No one wants to be touched!”
Our inability to parse this sentence prevents a fist-fight.
Drunk and excited in Philadelphia, my stupid exuberance tempting its excitable cops, I am somehow amidst a clump of republican delegates. I shout, “You! You’re all philosopher-monkeys!”
Your patience continues to astonish me,
Karl Steel
Date: Tue, 08 Aug 2000
From: Michael McCarrin
Subject: the truth about good and bad
Dear McSweeneys,
Bad things only happen to good people. When bad things happen to bad people, we say “good.”
This can get confusing, so here is a small chart of equations which will guide you:
badthing + good person = bad for good person
goodthing + good person = good for good person
goodthing + bad person = bad for good people
badthing + bad person = good for good people
As you can see, we do not care much about bad people.
Yours,
Michael
Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2000
From: Whitney Pastorek
Subject: ka-boom?
Dear McSweeney’s,
When I walk to the subway in the morning, the pale Queens sun is rising behind the elevated tracks of the N. The tiny people up on the platform mill about in silhouette and the silver trains sparkle as they rush by; it all seems so crisp, delicate, as though the scene were cut from unbelievably fragile paper with the thinnest of razors.
Then I imagine it blowing up. All of it: Dunkin’ Donuts, the Grand Central Parkway, those trucks with their goddamned honking, the blue tin roof of the N station rocketed sky-high amidst plumes of orange flame. The wave of sound and rush of air would knock me back, possibly to the ground. I would watch as it all turned to ash.
And then I would get out my cell phone, dial into work, and say, I’m not coming in today. Why not? my boss would ask in that way she has that reveals a deep presupposition of guilt and insubordination. Well, um, my subway station just blew up, I would answer smugly. And then I would hang up. And walk home. And watch “Hunter” at 1:05 on The Superstation.
That would be cool.
thanks so much,
whitney pastorek
Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2000
From: Ogilvie, Sara
Subject: Grammar 2000
Dear McSweeney’s,
My mother blames my recent grammar problems on laziness, but I think that brain cells are falling out my ear as I sleep. Last weekend I used the word “swang.” Yesterday, while at work, I actually said “I had do that before,” and now I keep replaying the incident in my head, again and again, hoping no one heard me. My grammar used to be impeccable…now I think I might need to hide in a cave.
Sad,
sara ogilvie
Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2000
From: Robert Beier
Subject: From your office correspondent
Dear McSweeney’s:
Since my tenure here at MLB I have learned that baseball phrases do not only apply to the game of baseball. They also apply to the office just as well. I have been asked if I am looking to “play in the majors”. This was said while asking me if I wanted to help out the Commissioner on a project. Welcome to The Show boys. “Now we don’t want her thinking you’re her farm team.” This was said about a fellow co-worker thinking she could call me whenever she wanted help. “Are you pinch hitting today?” Asked of me when seen by a fellow co-worker sitting at someone else’s desk. “We’re gonna have to step up to the plate on this one.” Obvious. “Swing and a miss.” Said to me when I gave the wrong answer. “Do you want to go to third base now?” Whispered to me in a closet located near the boardroom.
Regards,
Bob
Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2000
From: Ben Davis
Subject: Weenus Inventus
Dear McSweeney’s,
Well, I have five younger brothers and we all have ‘em. Mostly it was referred to as ’item’ i.e. ‘does the item itch?’. Friends of my dad’s from South Georgia have betrayed a warm spot for ‘tee tee’ and ‘willy’. Some missionaries from Australia( their son, a pretty short little dude), alluded to an imaginary homoerotic situation with ‘tallywacker to tallywacker’.
My fave so far though comes all the way from the Navajo reservation on the NM, AZ border where in winter you should take special care not to freeze off your ‘peepy stick’.
Regards,
Ben Davis
Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2000
From: Sarah M. Balcomb
Subject: Do you think I’m an elitist?
Dear McSweeney’s,
You may be sad to know that the new doorman at my office building is gone. Fired, I presume. Ah, sweet misunderstood Angel, I never even knew your name.
On Monday morning, the last day I saw Angel, he was wearing a slick black pinstriped suit, his hair greased back with even more gel than usual. He was strutting around the lobby of my office building, a group of Croatian receptionists crowded around him, bearing their legs and covering their mouths to hide girlish grins. I hurried into the elevator, my Manhattan Portage “briefcase” slung across my chest, and upstairs I soon discover the source of Angel’s hubris: he had discovered my missives and composed one of his own.
All day I carefully avoided our doorman, taking my hourly smoke breaks in the back stairwell rather than outside. Is it just me or does every office building have dirty condoms littering the seldom-used stairwells?
As I left for the day, keeping my head low and walking with a purpose, the doorman was on the phone.
“No, that’s not true. They all like me. I get along great with everyone here,” he was saying, sounding desperate, grasping in his shiny suit.
I never saw Angel again. A silent fifty-something black man with a lazy eye now occupies the desk. His garb is much like a referee’s uniform, except with suspenders instead of a belt, and he often keeps a whistle in his mouth. Stitched into his uniform, in green embroidery, is the name Trina.
Let it be known that Angel has a very important voice, a new voice that needs to be heard. That voice is the voice of the street. The new urban denizen, who some may call a monster, a predator, raised in the ghetto, raised on violence, without hope, without a father. But without people like Angel, we would be hopelessly lost in our intellect, ruled by our cynicism, unconnected to our animal roots, unaware of what is real, tangible.
So Angel, I hope that you do not silence yourself, do not be afraid to share your voice with us. Break out of your chrysalis, Angel, bud with us… No more stealing sneakers for crack. We are here for you whenever the street gets you down.
Peace out,
Sarah M. Balcomb
PS – I hope your blisters have healed.
Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2000
From: Dan Kennedy
Subject: SINGLE TALL WITH WHISKERS
Dear McSweeney’s-
This morning at the neighborhood cafe, I was in line with one other person: A middle-aged conservative woman who was in front of me and had already been served, I assumed. The guy working at the register said, “I can help you miss” and I thought he said, “I can help who’s next,” and so I stepped forward and gave him my order.
And the woman kind of looked at me. And the employees kind of looked at me. Hey, everybody…look at the tall woman with the five o’clock shadow taking cuts in line. Little Miss Kennedy was ready for his morning coffee.
Finally awake-
Dan Kennedy
New York, New York
Date: Thu, Aug 10 2000
From: Mike Topp
Subject: Island of the Little Boys
Dear McSweeney’s:
Has anyone else ever heard of Raymond Burr’s “Island of the Little Boys”?
Just curious.
Sincerely,
Mike Topp
Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2000
From: Person144
Subject:My Shopping List
1. Sewing Machine.
2. Thimble.
3. Bread.
Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2000
From: Justine Hermitage
Subject: Street Smarts
Dear McSweeney’s:
Today I was walking down the street, after getting a haircut. I smelled of Aveda. It’s a distinct smell, but for the life of me, I can’t describe it. You have to have smelled it to know this smell. There were a lot of little hairs on my back and my neck. I kept wiping these little hairs out of my eyes. I itched and scratched and wiped. And my skirt kept twisting around. Every block or two I’d feel for the tag that’s sewn to the back of the skirt, and I would eventually find it on my hip or in the front. And my V-neck shirt kept creeping down so my distinct lack of cleavage was enhanced for all the world to see. I stepped off the curb to cross the street. The light was green, or so I presumed.
Well. I got hit by a cab. It hurt. Now the itchy hairs don’t seem so bad.
Yours truly,
Justine Hermitage
Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2000
From: Rubies at Tea Time
Subject: pink tights no shoes
Dear McSweeney’s,
I am nearly 25 years old and I am going to be a ballerina. Never mind the fact that I will develop lithe and powerful legs, I am going to wear the pointe shoes without breaking my ankles. Yes I will. I don’t care about my audience. I do not wish for one. I want a room with a nice floor and a gigantic mirror and a barre. Then I will plié and moon over my legs and my balance will dramatically improve.
Yours,
Mary Fisher
Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000
From: Larchmont, NY
Subject: Harpers
Dear McSweeney’s,
I just have to jump in here, having seen the bunch of mail about your editor and the little people at Harper’s who messed with his sister. Class in session: Look, I’ve been in New York for 22 years. I work in the media. Newspapers, magazines. I even tried some book publishing, at a house now owned by Germans. I even worked at the magazine in question for a while, though I’m not saying when. So I’ve been around, and my guess is that your readers are younger and could use an education. So listen up: the fact that Eggers is surprised by any of this is shocking.
Every writer since the beginning of time has dealt with the same thing. He or she writes a book, that book is highly acclaimed and (god forbid) sells well, and soon enough, the little people stuck at associate editor jobs get their silky boxers in a knot and try to cut the guy down to size. It’s their way of involving themselves in the scene, and getting their name in the register.
But then the guy keeps writing books, the associate editors leave to edit trade magazines in Phoenix, never sell that novel they’ve worked on for ten years, and are soon forgotten. Name me a writer, students, who hasn’t been accosted by the tiny people. It’s so predictable that it’s almost funny. All the reviews are great at first, but then, much later, a few bad ones trickle in from the contrarians who are so proud of not succumbing to the wave of adulation. The writer gets criticized, in essence, for getting good reviews. The book is suspected because it’s successful. Ho hum.
It’s the worst kind of elitism. These guys hate it when popular books get good reviews, because that means that regular people who read at the beach have taste and can read good books, and these people just hate that. Look what they did to Flaubert, Lawrence, Hemingway, Vonnegut, Amis, Doctorow, even Nicholson Baker when he dared to sell well (see: Vox). And on and on and on. Tolstoy even. Kerouac. Anyone who anyone can remember has fought off the nibbling maggots. These guys would attack the Bible because it sells well.
And of course they’ll go to any length to express their frustration, even if that means talking about someone’s dental work, or ex-wives, or finding an embarrassing email from someone’s sister. It’s so unsurprising that it’s downright boring. It’s all par for the course, and your apparently thin-skinned Eggers better get used to it. There are rat bastards out there, I’ve worked with them for a long time, and I know they’re bastards. (Maybe I’m one of them!) And they’ll try to get you down, every time. The only way to stop them is to hope they die, or, even better, hope they have some success of their own. Nothing to cure a bitter little person like a little sweet success. Give these guys some approval, and the cloud over their head is lifted, the sun shines upon them, and they suddenly become human again. Just like the kid who bites his classmates, all they want is a little attention.
Wish I could give you my name but I can’t
Larchmont, NY
Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000
From: rollo
Subject: Geronimo and the Tootsie Roll cop
Dear McSweeney’s,
Yesterday, after a workday largely devoted to plumbing the McSweeney’s archives, I went to the neighborhood salon to have my wispy useless hair shorn ($5). As the clippers tickled my scalp I became absorbed in a series of framed photos, presumably of the salon owner’s relatives. These were strange portraits. They each featured some kind of weird superimposition. The top picture showed a field of roses, only one of the stems had a pretty teenager’s head sticking out of it. Another was an ominous beach scene, with a lost-looking toddler walking on (or actually superimposed over) sharp-looking rocks. Floating in the sky above the water was the disembodied head of a stern mustached man. The strangest, though, were these two pictures of pregnant women. They each were lifting their shirts to show their very pregnant bellies, and smiling. And they each had, superimposed on their pregnant bellies, pictures of the smiling faces of the babies that would eventually be born from those bellies. Each picture had the words “by Geronimo” in the corner. On the mirror in front of me was one of Geronimo’s business cards. It said “Silkscreening: Specialty in T-shirts.” If anyone is interested in Geronimo’s silkscreening services you can email me (rolloroyce@earthlink.net) and I’ll go back and get his pager number.
After the haircut (how wonderful the breeze feels on a freshly shorn scalp!) I walked to the subway. Walking right in front of me were two unusually attractive female police officers. Ahead of us, on a bench, a man was unwrapping a tootsie roll pop. He finished unwrapping it just as the cops passed him. In one perfect stroke the cop nearest him plucked the sucker right out of his hand and stuck it in her mouth. The man was astonished, and clearly very impressed. She turned back and flashed a devilish smile as she sucked on her prize. It was a very sexy maneuver indeed.
I was excited to tell these stories to the girl that works at the clothing store I was headed for, because I have a crush on her. But when I arrived she was locking the store for the night and in her company was a man more muscular and handsome than I. She opened the shop again to let me look at the muumuus. I told them my stories with much aplomb. He didn’t say shit.
Jealously,
Rollo Romig
Brooklyn
Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2000
Subject: meet me
This is scaring me. I need to see you. I must see you. I didn’t want to hurt you. You didn’t want to hurt me. Call my voice mail. We will meet. It got out of hand. I need to see you. Call my voice mail today. Did you get my message yesterday? We can meet tonight after I work? I will not be able to get online again today. You will call me. I am trying to hypnotize you. You will meet me. You will see me.
MKB
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 2000
From: Angel Izquierda
Subject: Word Up
Dear McSweeney’s,
At least Sarah B.‘s letters are setting the record straight about the demeanor I brought to that cold lobby. Her kindness appears as rich as her physical beauty. Your readers would not know this, but Miss Sarah B. has it going on, especially with that harried look she affects — tangled hair and shifting eyes — when she’s running late. Plus catch the irony that she and I never connected in person — like, she doesn’t even know the real Angel — yet we reach each other through the internet. Proves the web is NOT overrated! Everyone said it would CHANGE things, and it has.
As for news: I’m thinking dramatic series, working title: Lives of the Saints. Or reality TV (“Revolving Doors”). Touch my new contacts at 30 Rock; watch this thing soar. Get the piety and savagery of the city coming and going. Sarah B. is right: I have a voice. I’m all voice, charging the wires at light speed.
Peace,
Angel
Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2000
From: Marek
Subject: for the record
Dear McSweeney’s,
Today I wore the silly t-shirt, with the tiger face. Gleaming emerald eyes. It’s too tight, ridiculous, funky in that uncool way. If you see me, laugh. Hard. Roar with laughter. HA HA HA HA HA! “Look at that girl in the stupid tiger t-shirt!” “She should know better.” “Tigers are SO passe.” It’s good to be laughed at. Maybe not good, but better than nothing. Give me SOMETHING, people, please!
Surly and so on, Iz
Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000
From: Newhart, Bryson
Subject: Fragments of a dialog between two young doctors
Dear McSweeney’s,
On the train to PA I overheard a dialog between two young doctors who had just met. A man and a woman. They were very exited about all they had in common. Annoyed because I couldn’t concentrate on my book, I decided to transcribe as much as I could. This is what I caught:
They had 26 radiologists there. Much younger. All old Penn grads and Jefferson. Did you know Dan at Hershey? Dan lost thirty pounds studying.
At Bryn Mawr?
Hershey.
How is it there?
Oh it’s awful. If you screw up, the surgeons are really in your face.
Oh god.
You have to deal with the repercussions. The guy I worked with in June, Mitch Wise, he was doing an interventional fellowship. He spent some time at Jeff.
I just took a job at Lancaster General. They do a lot of good stuff there. It’s very nice. I’m really excited about the ultrasound.
We don’t get a lot of trauma, fortunately.
He threw a whole stack of MRs at me.
We don’t do that much body MR stuff. Isn’t it hard? There are so many mistakes you can make. At Hershey, they really made a mess. Give me my wrists and ankles over livers any day.
I was doing body imaging at Hopkins but then I had a baby my second year so I had to drop out for a while.
Yeah, I have two kids and I always felt guilty about never being at home.
The best is when you’re a med student. You have so much time then.
Dan wasn’t thrilled when I had a baby. Scheduling.
That’s it. My wrist got numb.
-Bryce
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2000
From: whitney pastorek
Subject: Letter Number [insert text here] to McS
Dear McSweeney’s,
Some Things That Have Been Concerning Me Of Late, 8/15/00*
1. There is, I believe, a new species of bug in my apartment. Sort of a large millipede crossed with a silverfish. My dilemma is this: do I snuff it out and thereby risk ecological disaster, or if I let it live will it crawl in my ear to have babies?
2. I’m not convinced that I know what the word “solipsism” means.
3. Should I find Keanu Reeves more attractive? Do I find Angelina Jolie TOO attractive?
4. After they fell off this past spring, I think my big toenails are growing in wrong.
5. My irrational rage with people who take up too much room on the subway bench by spreading their legs wide is growing. Is this evidence of psychosis?
6. We are running out of fresh water. We are running out of fresh water!*
7. They say people who are healthy sweat sooner and more than others. But I sweat a lot, and I eat upwards of 6 cheeseburgers/wk. What does this mean in terms of my body chemistry?
8. I have been calling people by the wrong names; not just mixing up “Laura” and “Lauren”, for example, but rather “Damon” and “Nick.” Do I consume too much NutraSweet?
- stop me if you’ve heard this one.
thanks so much
whitney pastorek
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2000
From: Karl Tobias Steel
Subject: Harper’s Magazine, and My New Date
Dear McSweeney’s:
Readers, Harper’s Magazine tried to push me in front of a subway this morning. What are YOU going to do about it?
On a related note, I sat at dinner a few days ago with my new date, and others. One of the others bemoaned her boy-friendless life, and explained that what she really wanted was a “tall, dark-haired, blue-eyed, effeminate boy” (like me). She added, to my date, “But you’re much cuter than I am.”
My date, Coco, just held back from replying, “Yeah. That’s why he’s buying me dinner.”
Coco held off, but, good Christ, we laughed like drunk monkeys that night, just thinking of it.
If patience had a middle and a last name, both would be McSweeney’s,
Karl Steel
Manhattan, New York
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2000
From: Jessica Schanberg
Subject:: Harper’s , Tom Wolfe and some light bulbs going off
Dear McSweeney’s,
Anything that makes you think is good and the Harper’s interview was no exception. While I thought that they were heavy-handed in their approach, I did like the issue that it brought up. Is success bad for creative people (writers, artists)? Does it somehow taint their “purity” or “realness”. Personally I think that anyway an artist can bring green to the table is admirable and should be praised.
But…I do have some conflicting feelings about celebrity status and what that means in our star-magazine approach to life in the USA. Unfortunately, to get what we want out of the system we have to play the game with “the man”. I figure, in my own life, if I am honest about it, then I have nothing to fear from the starving artists who complain about yuppie sellouts.
After reading the Harper’s piece, my cousin lent me his copy of “The Painted Word” by Tom Wolfe. He writes about the attempt to stay “real” coupled by a very real desire to be chosen by the “elite”. I think that he sums up the struggle very well:
He could close his eyes and try to believe that all that mattered was that he knew his work was great…and that other artists respected it…and that History would surely record his achievements…but deep down he knew he was lying to himself. I want to be a Name, goddamn it!
Pick me pick me pick me pick me pick me pick me …O damnable Uptown!
Sincerely,
Jessica
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2000
From: Ben Davis
Subject: RE: Miss Kennedy
Dear McSweeney’s,
I have full sympathy for you Dan, and in addition, no scolding tone to offer, only sympathy… ahem. Mornings I frequent an establishment a few blocks from my friends home where we are both nerds for “the Man”. Generally(especially if hungover) I painfully pull my power steeringless truck into the small mini mart parking lot and enter the nondescript store front of “Fred’s # 3”. An immigrant run fast food joint that proffers an intriguingly bland conflation of Mexican and American fast food. Maybe # 3 is a clue. The only item on the menu that this unfortunate meeting works for it turns out is their fantastic breakfast burrito; bacon eggs hash browns and salsa, oh yeah and cheese. Anyway, two breakfast burritos +tax somehow always comes out to $7.27 on the register to which I always respond with a five and three ones. He then gives me the easiest change $.75 in quarters. Well I guess one morning I was feeling a little inadequate and when offered the customary .75 ( which I like to spend playing cruisin’ USA while I wait), I took a ponderous, eye crust decorated, look down at the change in my hand and then gave him a quarter back. I said ‘no I gave you eight dollars’ he politely taking the quarter, ‘oh, you gave me eight dollars’. I didn’t realize until I had lost my second round of cruisin’ that I had embarrassed myself under the pretense of good Samaritanism. For a while I was apprehensive about going back. I even started to think ‘what if he always tries to cheat me out of a quarter now’. We’re back to normal however, and he has been kind enough not to mention it or steal my quarters which, incidentally I put into the cruisin’ game. And I’m sure he’s getting a piece of those profits so…
We’re all in this together yo!
Ben Davis
Pasadena, CA P.S. Kudos, on discovering that Bearman kid, he’s a sharpie!
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2000
From: rollo
Dear McSweeney’s,
I was a little taken aback when she started enthusing to me about how much she likes the suitor I lost to in the battle for her affections. Maybe she thought I would benefit from his example. She explained his appeal as follows:
1) “He knows what he wants, and he goes and gets it.” (“it” meaning her.)
2) He has that “hard to get” quality.
As much as I’d enjoy smashing his pretty face in, I have to admire his ability to convey two seemingly contradictory personality traits simultaneously, and with such successful results.
Whatever,
Rollo
P.S. Ouch! Jesus! What a sarcastic and bitter letter! You sound pitiful. There’s your problem, mister.
P.P.S. Like you can’t relate. And I’m not even bitter. I’m happy. Incredibly lucky. I’ve counted my blessings, and I have tons. I have a blessings surplus. I’m just spreading surplus joy everywhere. Leave me alone.
P.S. She’s way too short for you anyhow. You’d look ridiculous together.
P.P.S. Are you still talking?
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2000
From: Thomas Gibbon
Subject: Determined, with Bee-Gee-like fervor, to get a message to Greg P
Dear McSweeney’s,
you can learn a lot about Earth by travelling to other planets.
Recently I was on the ghost planet Big Rock on a case. It was a typical shake and bake scenario; wealthy heiress kidnapped, ransom note sent, botched Egyptian commando raid, lots of naughty photos, and plenty of free billable hours for Mick to while away.
Big Rock wasn’t always a ghost planet. It used to be inhabited by the Hick Anthropologists, a terrifying sweater-wearing people who put the “violent and toothless” back into weird Calvinist fanaticism. Ultimately their civilization was destroyed by the irrepressible umbraticands of neighboring Teenybophutatswana, a planet founded by hick runaways in the 1950’s. In the millenia before their demise, however, the Hick Anthropologists documented and analysed countless of the inner and outer worlds. Earth not least among them.
Sitting, somewhat at ease, in the vaults of their great archives, waiting for the word from Stingray Modesto Corner, QC, (father to the purloined heiress) I perused, to my great benefit, some of their ancient observations of our Earth planet. To wit:
“The people of so-called ‘North’ America are so filled with sinful, hating words that they must abrade, with chemical and scrub-brush, their mouths each night to prevent tooth-decay. Likewise are their dreams filled with such prurience and disarray that they must again submit to this chore upon waking lest the compounded nocturnal foulness cost them the Anderson account and all hope of love. We would like to point out that this is not merely some purification ritual, like the hog bathing and sister-mating of Big Rock, no, this operation is quite necessary to maintain the actual physical integrity of North American teeth. Additionally most residents of this region can neither whittle nor yodel to save their lives.”
It was all so true. And now? And now it is too late. And yet? And yet I loved that filth and swam and lived in it. Races more foul than we have lived and died and the purer ones as well, but of all the worlds and all the beasts that stamped with foot and sinned with speech there is not one which can compare to the never-right indoctrinnaire of an Earthman gone astray!
Vivat!
Mick “Roughly to the tune of ‘The British Grenadier’” Spaceman, PI
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2000
From: Leonard Langdon
Dear McSweeney’s,
I am new to your site, well at least a new writer. I am curious about your editorial policy, for your letters page.
Who reads these letters and then decides which letters to post. It seems like there are a lot of regular contributors to the letters page, do you accept new contributors?
I like the letters. I think it is interesting to read people’s seemingly anonymous ponderings.
I hope I can write something creative and witty enough to also be included amongst the talent you feature each week.
Thank you,
Leonard Langdon
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2000
From: Mike Topp
Subject: Recent Symptoms
Dear McSweeney’s:
Here are my recent symptoms: Sweating. Itching. Anorexia. Night sweats. Dizziness. Headache. Sensation disturbance. Chills. Malaise. Delusions. Depersonalization. Euphoria. Hallucinations. Hostility. Libido increased. Manic reaction. Paranoid reaction. Psychosis. Stupor.
Yours truly,
Mike Topp
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2000
From: Don Smith
Subject: Odd Museum
Dear McSweeney’s,
I just got back from Philadelphia.
The Mutter Museum of Medical Oddities was a real eye opener. Lots of dark red curtains and brass hand rails. Dark stained wood floor. The only 7’6" skeletons on display on this continent! The first floor, “special” exhibit was entitled, “The Presidents Medical Ailments and their Doctors”. The first item was a wax recreation of what President Washington’s leg abscess might of looked like when he was treated by then White House Physician Robert Boil (an unfortunate name).
There was a blood soaked shirt collar belonging to Abraham Lincoln, collected off the Presidents person during Doctor Hicks’s effort to revive the dying man (this was a troubling item). The collar looked to be made of a fine, light cotton.
There was a large outline drawing of President Ford with dots indicating the loci of minor medical attention brought to bear on the President body during his brief stay in the oval office. The illustration was colorful, intricate, historic.
Down stairs is where they keep the permanent collection. Over 150 skulls, representing as many races. This display was dramatic and produced a fine overall evenness to the collection, but beauty is in the details, and upon careful inspection one begins to notice the endless variation of skull shapes.
There were dozens of very small skeletons of Siamese twins, connected at every imaginable body tangent.
For awhile the Museum produced a calendar. You guessed it, a different medical oddity every month. Apparently, this practice stopped when a whole carton of the calendars, bound for a medical convention, was diverted to a grammar school.
Don Smith
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2000
From: Jim Crocamo
Dear McSweeney’s,
I am very much enjoying the installments of Neal Pollack’s “Philadelphia: Into the Maw.” Especially the mentions of the “Fornicators will join Tupac in Hell” guy. I know him! He goes to the campus of Temple University every weekday, stands on the stairs of the Student Center, and proceeds to offend everyone in sight by calling them fornicators and homosexuals (neither of which are very offensive insults, really). Sometimes he gets so excited he just falls over. It often ends when he is surrounded by screaming students “debating” with him and the Temple Police show up on their nifty mountain bikes. I used to think it was pretty funny until one day his wife and baby were standing there with him in solidarity. The baby was cute. It wasn’t really funny anymore.
Regards,
Jim Crocamo
Date: Fri, Aug 18 2000
From: Tom Hall
Subject: full moon power
Dear McSweeney’s,
This past Monday, I decided that I would call in sick to work and go to the movies. In the overcast, afternoon daylight, a man standing across the street made eye contact with me and came running over to stop directly in my path and break wind. As I was recovering >from the shock of this, a small boy another 10 yards or so away dropped his pants and went, well, Number One on the sidewalk in front of me, again directly in my path.
When I got to the movie (the excellent re-release of ‘Gimme Shelter’ starring the Rolling Stones) a very tall man shoved me through the doors to the box-office, and ended up sitting two rows in front of me, rolling Drum cigarettes and smoking them during the movie while shouting “Yeah, man!” every time Mick Jagger moved his hips (which is a lot of times if you’ve never seen Mick Jagger before). Finally, a woman in the theater yelled at him to put out his cigarette, so he changed seats and started again. I would normally attribute this to ‘hippie’ behavior, but it is a tough call.
Talk soon,
Tom H.
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2000
From: Dan Kennedy
Subject: NOT SO HIGH-BROW
Dear McSweeney’s-
Somehwere there’s a small factory that makes little tiny plastic brides and grooms for the tops of wedding cakes.
And in that factory there is a workstation where a worker sits and does the same thing every single day.
Pick up the groom.
Paint the eyebrows in.
Pick up the groom.
Paint the eyebrows in.
The wrong angle can make the little man look doubtful or angry or confused. If you got a worker that can’t paint that “Happiest day of my life” angle, you gotta let ’em go.
Dan Kennedy
New York, New York.
Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2000
From:Liz Goldstein
Subject: My feeble feelings
Dear McSweeney’s,
Having the nickname “Pork” is bad enough, but when people like Julie Westphal share their dislike for pork rinds, or other porkish products, I become sad.
People like that are just jealous of my nickname.
—Liz Goldstein
Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2000
From: CUL Kiosk
Subject: Three items about suicide.
Dear McSweeney’s,
A few weeks ago I was climbing up the gorge trail and passed, as always, beneath a metal bridge that supported one of the town’s streets. This bridge is quite high up and is the traditional place for suicides to jump. Anyhow, as I walked under it, I heard a voice call out, “Hey, Joe!” I looked up and saw a man’s shadow through the bridge grating. My name isn’t Joe; I figured the man was calling to someone out of sight around the next bend, and walked on. In a moment, though, I heard the call again, and turned. I could now see the man clearly. He had one leg flung over the railing and was in some danger of falling. It then registered that he hadn’t been saying “Hey, Joe!” but “I’m gonna jump!”
I was about to open my mouth to shout out some discouragement when he apparently changed his mind, climbed back onto the street and shambled (drunk, I think) out of sight.
The whole thing got me thinking about the relationship between extreme beauty and death. Of course I’m far from the first person to make this connection but it was and is compelling to consider it in the context of one’s home town.
Last night I dreamed that a man had killed himself by jumping from a tall building. I was standing on the ground some hours later, contemplating the empty patch of dusty cobblestone where he had landed. A bystander (a woman in her sixties who I understood was the mother of someone I knew, I don’t know whose) told me, with apparent pleasure, that while the man was falling his heart had somehow unraveled from his chest, and when he struck the ground he was cradling it in his outstretched hand.
Then today I walked up the gorge again and somebody had built this elaborate cairn out of creek rocks, a four-sided pyramid with a tall standing stone on top. It hadn’t been there when I walked down.
Yours
J. Robert Lennon
Ithaca, NY
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2000
From: Chuck Easterling
Subject: Acme Corp. Inc.
Dear McSweeney’s,
Henceforth I shall only apply for jobs whose descriptions include the phrase “Must be able to lift” followed by a poundage designation.
Bulky,
Chuck Easterling
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2000
From: Karl Tobias Steel
Subject: Spliff: a playlet
Dear McSweeney’s:
A PLAYLET
by Karl Steel
Characters:
Karl, a medievalist
Dave, a famous writer
Setting:
A loft in Brooklyn overlooking, impossibly, the Bronx.
K: Did you read McSweeney’s letters today? I’m in it, again.
D: Hell no. Too busy reading Harper’s. I wish they’d stop capping on me.
K: Dude, totally.
[They high-five. They high-five high, then low, then knock their elbows together, left-to-right, then right-to-left. This is a painful and awkward “secret handshake,” but they do it anyway.]
FINIS
Please don’t leave me now,
Karl Steel
New York
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2000
From: Leonard Langdon
Subject: Banners
Dear McSweeney’s,
I like the new header, “Green Pastures of Want and Red seas of Shudder.” I can’t bring myself to analyze it, but I can really empathize.
Lately, I’ve been rolling in the green pastures of want (I imagine every woman I see naked) and shuddering in red seas as well (I imagine every woman I see naked).
Thanks,
Leonard Langdon
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2000
From: JulieWestphal
Subject: I had my own nickname, and it was “Foghorn”
Dear McSweeney’s,
In response to Liz Goldstein’s letter:
Your feelings are not feeble.
I was responding to a letter posted recently to the M.R. inquiring about his take on pork rinds. I was just offering my ‘take’, and meant no offense to anyone named ‘Pork’.
Thank-you,
Julie Westphal
Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2000
From: rollo
Subject: Have a lot of fun, without even breaking it!
Dear McSweeney’s,
I sure do like my youngest sister a lot. She wants to be a jazz singer by night, secret agent by day. She’s always singing funny songs she makes up. One day years ago she kept singing “Have a lot of fun, without even breaking it!” over and over. I love that.
She is also compulsively profane. I would have been whipped if my parents heard me curse just once when I was a kid, but they think a pretty little girl swearing is funny. Now, everyone in the family can’t stop swearing. It’s sort of a bonding thing we do. Recently I was complaining to mom about what a lousy typist I am and she said, “Your sister is so fast. You should see that bitch go!” If you knew my mom, you’d know how astonishing that was.
Maybe I’ll tell you about my other 2 sisters later. They’re great too.
With brotherly love,
Rollo Romig
Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2000
From: Dan Kennedy
Subject: STIFF COMPETITION
Dear McSweeney’s-
Recently at the neighborhood cafe with a friend of mine, some guy overheard me complaining about my job and money and all this other stuff. I was going on and on and this guy says, “Why don’t you write a funny book and quit your job when you sell it?”
I don’t even know this guy. I wanted to come up with some kind of smart reply, you know, to kind of tell him to mind his own business. I couldn’t really think of anything right off the bat… So I go, “Why don’t YOU write a funny book and quit YOUR job if you’re so smart.”
He got this look in his eyes like I had just given him a great idea, and said, “Yeah…maybe I will, actually. Maybe I will.”
Great. I should’ve just said, “Mind your own business.”
Dan Kennedy
New York, New York.
Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2000
From: Sarah M. Balcomb
Subject: three years
Dear McSweeney’s:
Last night I had a dream about the MR. Bryce Newhart and I were invited to a dinner party, and in attendance were the MR, his girlfriend and another couple we did not know. It was a rather casual affair, all of us just sitting or standing around the kitchen, talking and picking at a platter of finger food. There might have been chips and salsa as well.
BN was talking to the other couple, who seemed like good people, while I spent my time with the MR and his girlfriend. It was a humid evening and since the MR and I both have curly hair, we were commiserating about the problems that such weather can do to such hair. We were both looking a little frizzed out on top.
While I leaned against the kitchen counter talking to the MR, who was standing a little too close and gently touching my arm whenever I said something particularly funny or apt (I say such things quite frequently), his girlfriend was sitting on the floor and leaning against my legs. Occasionally, she stoked my feet, which were bare, and when I asked her why she kept doing this, she said that it was a way of getting to know someone, getting close to his or her feet.
It was a very pleasant dream.
Frazzled,
Sarah M. Balcomb
Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000
From: Libbey White
Subject: Dear McSweeney’s,
Dear McSweeney’s,
This one won’t go away. I didn’t want to write to you about it, because there’s not much to say, but it insists. There is a man seated at a kitchen table. He is in a house in the Alps, a very decorated house. Mainly, as you look around, you see yellows and browns and whites. There are no gaudy decorations, no gold, no leaves. There are cuckoo clocks, and countless wooden items- figurines, boxes, birds, napkin holders, salt and pepper shakers. There is a fine picture window to look out of, but it is framed by scalloped yellow curtains. Many happy years have been lived here. There is a stout woman standing at the top of three steps, her hand on the railing. The woman is familiar to the man, and he is turned towards her, waiting to hear what she will say. She holds the railing, and says, “Tundra.”
Libbey White
Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2000
From: Bob Sassone
Subject: Whitney’s bug problem
Dear McSweeney’s:
Re: the bug problem that Whitney talked about in her letter (below). Yes! I have those bugs in my apartment too! I even gave one to my landlord to he could “run tests,” as he put it.
I think Whitney and I should get together to battle these bugs. Like one of those 50s sci-fi/horror movies you see on TV late at night. She would wear a white lab coat, and as people are being eaten all around us, I would grab her hand, and yell “come on!” We’d run to an abandoned mine or maybe the old army base on the outskirts of town. There we would find a way to destroy the bugs forever (through either extreme heat or extreme cold).
Then we’d embrace, the music would swell, the credits roll.
Sincerely,
Bob Sassone
Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000
From: Craig Moorhead
Subject: Sam Meyer and Matt Fraction and things that occurred 6 months ago…
Dear McSweeney’s —
I am now prepared to present my rebuttal to the slanderous remarks made by one Mr. Sam Meyer and my friend Mr. Matt Fraction on two separate occasions in late February of this year. I hope that you will afford me space in your forum to do so.
First, Mr. Meyer stated that I could not possibly have purchased a Coke from the Taco Bell, as Taco Bell only serves Pepsi. While this is true, Mr. Meyer, may I remind you that it was a college campus Taco Bell and the drink I purchased was not from their taps, but from a free floating fountain drink machine near the straws and ketchup dispensers.
Then, Mr. Fraction, who I’ve had the great privilege of knowing for these many, many, many (8) years… how dare you reveal that I am a rock star! But your underhandedness carries a heavy price, for now I will reveal to the world that you happen to be, in secret… a gentleman of the highest caliber! How does that feel, Mr. Fraction?
Thank you
Craig Moorhead
Rock Star
Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000
From: Chris Cotner
Subject: Another Day in Oklahoma
Dear McSweeney’s,
1. In response to the Soundtrack decoding articles. I gotta agree that the theme from Chariots of Fire is a weird selection for both Liddy and Joe. Does it look like either one could run a mile, much less compete in the Olympics? I am working my way back into running and can only go two miles. Joe and Liddy don’t look like they have seen either pavement or a treadmill in a long time. (As an aside: while running on the treadmill the most recent CD from Lit is a great choice to distract you from the pain. It might not be the best CD of the year, but it does ROCK a little bit.)
2. I just got engaged. Thank you…No, you don’t know her…We go to law school together…Yeah, I met her in one of my classes…Yes, she is stunning…And yes, she is smart…Smarter than I am…March 17…No, not because of St. Patrick’s Day…Why? It is the Saturday before Spring Break.
3. Lastly, it is hot here. Hotter than the inside of my shorts.
Gotta go to class. Further updates as the situation warrants.
Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000
From: Jim Crocamo
Subject: haircut
Dear McSweeney’s,
I have a funny haircut. Quite by choice, however, and I like it. The only problem is that people, usually strangers, will make passing comments like, “Hey, Elvis Presley,” or “James Dean.” I’ve thought of keeping a good number of pictures of these types of people in my jacket, where a street “vendor” might keep “gold” watches, so I could immediately whip out a picture of Elvis and demand the person bothering me to assess it honestly and truthfully, and then tell me whether or not it REALLY looks like me at all. They would have to say no, because its the truth. Neither I nor my hair look anything like Elvis Presley or his hair. The other day a co-worker asked me if I was modeling my hair after the Backstreet Boys. My face assumed some horrible position and I asked “Have you ever SEEN the Backstreet Boys? Do you have ANY idea what they look like?”
My question is that, considering these people (Elvis, Bacstreet, James Dean) were or are among the most photographed people in the world, why is it that no one seems to know what they look like? And why am I involved in all this?
Sincerely,
Jim Crocamo
P.S. Is it wrong to be annoyed that you have to take your lunchbreak an hour early because your co-worker’s Mother had a heart-attack?
Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000
From: David C. Parker Jr.
Subject: we live and learn
Dear McSweeney’s
I got stopped by the police today at lunch. Well, not exactly STOPPED — I was just riding my bike up the hill, and the officer was riding his bike down the hill.
The officer said, “Hey!”
I said, “Huh?”
“You need to wear a helmet.”
I swung around so I was facing him, and I put my feet on the ground. “A helmet?”
“You need a helmet. It’s dangerous to ride out here in the streets without one – anything could happen.”
I thought, “Dangerous? This Richmond, Virginia, dude. What is possibly going to happen to me out here?”
I was just getting ready to say something like that – something witty, which the officer would have loved – when my hand slipped off the brake.
Normally that’s no big deal, but my feet were both stuck back behind the pedals, which sent my legs into an awkward position (stretched out behind me) which made me smack my hands down and cling tightly to the handlebars — so I wouldn’t fall off and/or look stupid.
But I couldn’t grab the brake like this. No brakes, hmm.
No brakes, ah . . .
NO BRAKES!!!
So the next thing I knew, I was shooting down Main Street into Shockoe Bottom and four lanes of oncoming traffic with my legs stuck behind me and the shiny leather toes of my work shoes dragging the pavement . . .
The point of this whole ridiculous story is, quite simply: Do not talk to police officers.
Thanks very much,
David Parker
Richmond, VA
From: George Lang
Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2000
Subject: Seger.
Dear McSweeney’s,
Have you ever thought to yourself, “If I had to pick one Bob Seger song to sum up his vast oeuvre, which one would I pick?”
My friends and I have played this game for years, never reaching a satisfactory conclusion. The ideal entry would achieve the perfect mix of musical hooks, bathos and fanfare for the common man.
Colleen insists that it is “Turn the Page”:
I await your thoughts.
Young and restless and bored,
George Long
Date: Mon, Aug 28 2000
From: Steven Tomsik
Subject: i just can’t stop
Dear McSweeney’s,
I am a fiend, damn you, but I know I can kick. This is the last time. No more orange and pink letters, no more wax paper squares, no more chocolate icing under the fingernails.
42nd Street-and-Madison Dunkin’ Donuts: I’m through!
Just one more, though.
Help me.
Steve.
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000
From: Christopher Sebela
Subject: I want in on this noise…
Dear McSweeney’s,
I was content to just read your letters page and laugh. This I have been doing for many a month, holding back on sitting down and attempting to amuse or at least interest those who read the letters. I was happy to be a passive observer, filled with want, tight-lipped with my jokes about blenders and birds of spring. But I have now seen 4 letters from people I know, or at least have heard of in casual conversation, and can no longer sit idly by.
Thank you for your time,
Christopher Sebela
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000
Subject: promotion to an adjective
Dear McSweeney’s:
I thought you should know that you have now become an adjective. Today, Ted Rall shifted you from a noun to a descriptor by writing “hopeless, McSweeneysesque-Arthur Miller-inspired characters…” about Ben Katchor’s comics.
Congratulations on your new part of speech.
Kate
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000
From: Newhart, Bryson
Subject: The subject is not happy but trying
Dear McSweeney’s,
Last night I saw a roach crawling across the top of my alarm clock. He paused to check the time and looked right at me. I quickly shut my eyes and pretended I was asleep. It didn’t work. I was up all night. So this morning on the elevator I put my head on a man’s shoulder and asked if I could take a nap there. I’ve been very depressed you see. My boss claims to be cultivating the world’s largest gallstone, but that’s because he cares. For me it’s just the opposite: everything seems futile.
For example, there is a girl who works here who has the same job as me but is six years younger and a high school dropout. She chats all day on the phone, astonished at her words, laughing and laughing. Her boyfriend and their friends are cops. A few weeks ago they came into the office to make photocopies of their guns. As I tried to sneak by them they pretended to shoot me. “You got me,” I said, grabbing my chest, too sad to actually laugh. For the rest of the day I pretended I was dying.
A small comfort. Sometimes I imagine running to the bathroom and sticking my head in the toilet. I dry off with toilet paper, then I pay a visit to the other office floors. I stumble around, look frantic, and flash my ID at people. “Don’t worry,” I say. “I work here.”
If I had a self-destruct button, honestly, my finger might slip.
Yours,
Bryce Newhart
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000
From: Dan Kennedy
Subject: AN EMBARRASSING CUP OF COFFEE IS NOT MY CUP OF TEA
Dear McSweeney’s-
Today I sat having my coffee at the neighborhood cafe thinking about how it may not be so good, you know, a grown man having a steady relationship with an obscure literary journal’s website. I started thinking I would take some time away from you. Some time to myself. I asked myself if you and I weren’t just sort of metaphorically falling into the proverbial bed together because I am a character too afraid to be alone.
Then I got off my high horse and considered the fact that maybe the only reason I see interesting things to tell you about is because of you being there to write to. In other words, maybe things like the obese insane man on the subway wearing the tee shirt that says, “Grandma Spoils Me!” would have never got on the downtown 6 train that I was on if it weren’t for you and the people who show up at the site to read letters and whatnot. Just as I was thinking that, this very attractive young woman that I recognize as my neighbor on the fourth floor walks in and says, “Hi. Dan, right? What are you up to?”
I have no idea why I said, “Oh, you know how sometimes when everything in a relationship is going great you have to sit there and wonder if there really isn’t something wrong with it?”
“Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.”
I think it’ going to end there. You know, a little nervous small talk and now we go our separate ways. But no. She keeps talking to me while she stands in line waiting.
“Oh, the blonde girl. You guys are always laughing. You seem so happy.”
“Oh. No. Not…her, really.”
Then I thought, Oh, great now it looks like I’m cheating on my girlfriend. So I tried to make it seem like a work related thing.
“Something in my work. I mean, AT my work. Where I work, at… work,” Realizing it must be obvious I work at home since it’s 11:00AM and I’m in a cafe drinking coffee.
“Your boss?”
“Yeah, this, uh, McSweeney. My supervisor. Mr. McSweeney,” I have no idea why I’m kind of trying to tell the truth and kind of trying to keep the lie going. I’m just lost and caught and more nervous with every word I say trying to end the conversation. I should’ve said “Nothing” when she asked what I was up to.
I’m thinking this tension has to give and this conversation has to end, when all of a sudden this look crosses her face and she says “Oh my God. Is your last name Kennedy? This is the neighborhood cafe! You write about it in the letters page on the McSweeney’s thing!”
I’m so full of panic and have no explanation to offer her as to why I was thinking about my “relationship” with you. In a sudden hurry, I act like I see somebody I was supposed to meet and walk out.
What’s a clever way of saying I’m so embarrassed-
Dan Kennedy
New York, New York.
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000
From: Post, Jamie
Subject:Hang Brain
Dear McSweeney’s,
I have a friend who thinks the word orgy is pronounced orangy. He will repeat it over and over with increasing speed and intensity. He will go on and on. My compatriots and I laugh at his expense. His mother doesn’t think it’s very funny.
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000
From:Whitney Pastorek
Subject: Bob Sassone
Dear McSweeney’s,
[In response to Bob’s suggestion that he and I team up to fight giant bugs]
Bob, a few questions:
1. Would I get to wear a miniskirt?
2. Would I be able to run remarkably well in heels?
3. Are you “hot”?
If the answer to 2 out of the 3 above is, “Yes!” then you’ve got yourself a partner, unless the answer to #1 is, “Yes!” but without any provision for making my calves more shapely, in which case I, out of deep respect for the sighted citizens of the world, must respectfully decline.
thanks so much
whitney pastorek
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000
From: “Ken Alper”
Subject: Just wondering…
Dear McSweeney’s,
Are you still carefully editing the letters section like you were a while ago, or do letters like this get published?
Oh, can you do that thing where my name appears in quotes?
—Ken Alper
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2000
From: luke o’neil
Subject: the old, you know, hair is going
Dear McSweeney’s,
I am sort of losing my hair. I am a biggish, hairy type of guy who is afraid of looking like a big galoot. If I am forced to go bald, and give up my funny looking hair (anyone with sideburns gets compared to Elvis, my friend) I will surely be ruined.
The point is this — will there be haircuts at the Boston event? If so, is there anyone capable of styling my thinning, yet sort of long hair, in such and such a way as to render me beautiful once again?
Yours in anticipation
Luke O’Neil
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2000
From: Sarah M. Balcomb
Subject: Three items
Dear McSweeney’s:
While paying a visit to amazon.com today, listed among my “personalized” recommendations was a novel by a Mr. J. Robert Lennon.
“Hum,” I said to myself, thinking this must be the same J. Robert Lennon who recently related a musing on suicide in Ithaca, NY.
So now I have added J. Robert Lennon’s book to my “wish list” on amazon, in case anyone is hard up for birthday ideas.
Sweetly,
Sarah M. Balcomb
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2000
From: George Long
Subject: More Bob Seger
Dear McSweeney’s,
I was heartened to see my letter dated 27 August 2000 displayed in your fine publication. However, I would be remiss if I didn’t take issue with one of your editorial elisions, to wit, removing any mention of my personal fave Bob Seger tune. While my friend Colleen selected the trite, AOR dinosaur, “Turn the Page”, I had clearly expressed a preference for that lissome paean to individuality, “Feel Like a Number.”
I suspect Colleen put you up to this.
George Long
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2000
From: Mark Walters
Subject:Four Square Tournament
Dear Mr. McSweeney’s:
I work for a large bookstore. We’re going to be closing our doors in early December and we’re gonna move out to Short Pump. Don’t get me started on Short Pump. Jesus, Short Pump? I used to make fun of Short Pump in high school. Short Pump is west of the city. They’re getting a Lord & Taylor’s in November. Whoop-de-freakin’ do!
Yours,
Mark Walters
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000
From: Chris Cotner
Subject: Another week in Oklahoma
Dear McSweeney’s,
I changed the subject heading to better reflect the intent of the email. It would be annoying to others and time consuming on my part to actually write an email every day concerning “Another Day in Oklahoma.”
1) It is still HOT here. The guys (including most high school science teachers) who wear short sleeve dress shirts with a tie don’t look quite as goofy when it is over 100 degrees.
2) In class the other day a girl raised her hand and prefaced her comments with, “As you all know, I participated in something like this during undergrad…” No, nobody knew that. We don’t even really know her name. Why would she think we would know what she did during her undergrad days? Was her comment calculated to get someone else to ask about her undergrad days? Does she need the attention? Her comment baffled me then and still does.
3) I attended a meeting of 4th grade parents. It was held in the library of the school where my soon to be son attends. I noticed during the meeting that there were no erasers on any of the pencils in the basket by the card catalogue. It occurred to me that I have never seen an eraser on a pencil in a library. Conclusion reached: Librians hate people who make mistakes
Until next week…
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000
From: MS. ROSAURA
Subject: YOU make me sad. I make me triumphant
Dear McSweeney’s,
I am Rosaura. I come to you plainly now. There is no time for weeping. I am here to tell you that I am the sun. The world is at my command. I swim in the ocean and while I am swimming a family of dolphins swims by… The forces are telling me to celebrate, to no longer weep. I am awake with joy, you horrid creature!
Date: Fri, 1 Sep 2000
From: Kurhajetz, Michael
Subject: the wee ones
Dear McSweeney’s,
What is the fascination with the dimensions of newborn babies? Why is it that the first thing we are told about children is their height and weight? Should we be on the lookout for them? And why are they 21" ‘LONG’ rather than 1’ 9" ‘TALL’?
I am unable to sleep . . . . but still the dreams come.
Michael Kurhajetz