Letters from May-December, 2001

Date: 4 Jun 2001
From: Owen Rodgers
Subject: Mr. Ed Kranepool

I must protest your inclusion of Mr. Ed Kranepool in Dave Daley’s list, “Baseball Players of the 1980’s Whose Names Are Still Available As Dot-Com Addresses,” dated June 1. Mr. Kranepool, apparently satisfied with his total of 225 doubles in 18 seasons, ended his career at the height of the Disco Era in 1979. I hope you regret the error, much as Mr. Kranepool surely regrets the 10 fielding errors he committed as a 20-year-old in 1965.

With Warmest Regards,

Owen Rodgers
Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Date: 4 Jun 2001
From: Stephen Hoban
Subject: [none]

Dear McSweeney’s,

I thought you might be happy to know that I’m going to write a series of short stories, each one about robots, and each one titled, “I, Robot.”

The reason for the titles is that each story will end with the following reflection: “[a]nd that’s when it truly hit me: that the world could be capable of acts of immeasurable beauty, and that I was a robot. I, robot.”

The first story in the series will concern a robot whose sole wish is to be a struggling short story writer in New York City. The problem: though he was designed to feel human emotions and understand this crazy thing called human love, he was never programmed to construct a narratorial voice for artistic-prose-composition purposes. But when he saves the life of a besieged robot manufacturer, he finally gets his desired upgrade.

The second story will concern a Windows-platform robot working in a midtown Manhattan office building who wishes he could join the world of the hipper, sexier Macintosh-platform robots in their downtown robot bars. (This story will have a sad ending.)

In another, a Windows-platform robot discovers the true meaning of life during a cross-country trip in one of those new Volkswagen Bugs with two fly-by-night Linux-platform robots.

In another, a robot programmed to feel betrayal learns the full force of that emotion after his maker sends him on Battle Bots, where he gets soundly thrashed by a small bug-like thing with a hammer claw that some thirteen-year-old built.

There will probably be more.

I realize that these stories concern robots that want desperately to be something they’re not, but I think deep down we all feel this way, from time to time. You show me a story about a happy robot, I’ll show you something nobody wants to read.

I mean, am I right or am I right?

Sincerely,
Stephen Hoban

[NOTE: McSweeney’s recently introduced two frequent letter writers, similarly surnamed Delahaye and Delahoyde. The following is the ensuing correspondence.]

Date: 19 Jul 2001
From: Delahaye, Gabriel
Subject: Delahaye Vs. Delahoyde

Well, let me start off by saying that I’m about to go to lunch, and so maybe we can start this conversation around two o’clock?

Thanks,
Gabriel.

Date: 19 Jul 2001
From: Delahoyde
Subject: RE: Delahaye Vs. Delahoyde

Gabriel,

Two o’clock seems fine to me, but should that be your two o’clock or my two o’clock? My two o’clock begins in about three and a half hours, whereas yours might begin at any minute (I’ve no idea where you are in this large country of ours). Regardless, whoever’s two o’clock comes first would be fine by me.

First, My name is Steve Delahoyde, born with the middle initial of T. I live in the bustling metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona where I work for a bio-med company mostly doing horrifically uninteresting things. Yet, on a positive note, I am able to send e-mails to people I don’t know on company time, so I should, perhaps lower my grievances to a low murmur. Two more bit of personal information: people have often described my eyes as “green,” whereas others have described them as “fairly greenish”. Also, I own two cats, one named Steven (named by a friend), the other Irvine (named after Irvine Welsh). They are both female.

As for the reasoning behind these e-mails, I think that Mr. Delahaye should address that situation, or rather, the situation we are now involved in, or rather, the situation we will be in later. Please, Mr. Delahaye, address something! At two!

Thanks,
Steve

Date: 19 Jul 2001
From: Delahaye, Gabriel
Subject: RE: Delahaye Vs. Delahoyde

Dear Steve,

Okay, I will try.

I was eating my lunch in the cafeteria. The cafeteria (I call it the Hot Caff) is on the eighth floor of my building, in New York, and I was sitting there and trying to think of how this would begin, and how I would phrase it, and how many times I would feel compelled to re-read it before sending anything out for fear that it would someday be read by others and Boy, what an embarrassment, if you can see where I’m coming from. Then I started choking on this piece of hot pepper from my sandwich, which was made by a new sandwich guy, who I don’t think I like at all, and who has a biblical name>that’s a clue>and I’ve had a cold this week so my throat was really raked already and these people sitting a couple chairs down from me didn’t even bother to look over. I could have been choking to death for all they knew and their seeming disregard pissed me off, but the brush with death put everything into perspective and I decided to try and “loosen the reigns” on this thing and not worry about it too much. I’ve never, by the way, been asked to do anything even remotely like this. Not even by family members.

We have been asked by people at McSweeney’s to begin an informal discussion, which they will read and perhaps publish, about pretty much anything we want. The reason this came about, I’m guessing, is because we started a discussion about the astounding similarity of our last names through the forum of the McSweeney’s letters page on their website and they were tired of playing the middle man. Here we are. I’m kind of looking forward to this whole thing, especially because the Letters Editor said we didn’t have to be clever and that takes the pressure off. Being clever is, I think, very difficult and makes me kind of nervous. Also, I sweat.

Also, I burst into tears. Oh, and the spelling of our last names, to begin, is D-e-l-a-h-a-y-o-d-e (that’s you), and D-e-l-a-h-a-y-e (that’s me). For my immediate background, I work on the seventeenth floor of a building in Times Square. From my boss’ office you can hear the girls screaming outside of MTV’s TRL studios. The elevator ride was exciting for the first few weeks, but now it just seems to take forever. I was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and grew up in Ann Arbor. Also, I have brown eyes and curly hair that I recently cut short into my ‘summer cut’. I live in Queens, which is nice and quiet. There are a lot of Koreans and Hispanics in my neighborhood. One day I heard this conversation on my street:

Boy (8 years old): She’s your girlfriend. Boy (4 years old): She’s not my girlfriend. Boy 8: Then why you always kissing on her? Boy 4: I love her, she’s my grandma.

So that is why we are here.

On the familial note, since that is where this originated and perhaps a good opening topic, I saw a film on Monday called You Can’t Take it With You. There was a scene where a family of bankers were at a restaurant with their friend The Count, or something like that, The Duke maybe, and as a sort of parlor game he was trying to trace his family tree as far back as possible. It got me thinking that I don’t really know as much about my family tree as I’d like…for my birthday last year I told my grandparents that instead of money or clothing I wanted them to write their autobiographies for me. Neither of them has started, so this year I told them I wanted money. But my grandpa has started writing poetry, he turned 78 yesterday, and I think that’s great. He read some of it on the fourth of July and it’s pretty good. So, I was wondering how far back you can trace your family tree and also, have you seen You Can’t Take it With You?

Right then,
Gabriel.

Date: 19 Jul 2001
From: Delahaye, Gabriel
Subject: RE: Delahaye Vs. Delahoyde

Steve,

Okay, just a quick clarification, so you don’t get mad, I spelled your last name wrong, which is bad form right off the bat. I re-read this before I sent it but not close enough. Shit.

Your goddamn name is D-e-l-a-h-o-y-d-e.

Sorry, really. I’m sorry.

Gabriel.

Date: 19 Jul 2001
From: Delahoyde
Subject: RE: Delahaye Vs. Delahoyde

Mr. Jones,

I have intentionally spelled your name incorrectly, as retribution for your blunder with mine (for which I was not angry and probably didn’t even notice at the time). Now, to start, I think I’ll begin each paragraph with “In regards to…”

In regards to neighborhoods, I also live in a very culturally diverse area, with people of all races and heights and methods of getting stains out of clothing. But that’s not important, what is important are those people who live about a mile down the street from me. In the apartment they live in, which is visible from the street, they occasionally hang up a large Budweiser banner across their patio overhang, and then proceed to use their grill outside on their gravel-filled lawn-area. This is odd enough, but over the last few days, I have driven by and have seen a large, flat piece of wood (probably 5’ by 7’), which has “Just Married” poorly spray-painted on it. More confusing is that it’s upside down. Did the marriage not work? Who are these people? Why do they do things like this? Mind you, I’m in a fairly nice area, so this is not commonplace. It certainly is intriguing.

In regards to “You Can’t Take It With You”, I have never seen the film, but have seen the play. In fact, I auditioned for that very same play as a freshman at my snooty Catholic high school. I made call backs, which I remember as being impressive for a freshman. During this second wave of auditions, we were placed in a line and given lines to read. For some reason, fear gripped me and, when it was my turn to read, I burst forward and delivered my few lines as boisterously as if I were some sort of Shakespearean actor on a stage with no acoustics. Needless to say, everyone stared blankly at me and I didn’t get the part.

In regards to family heritage, my father has gotten more and more interested in it over the past few years. He’s traced the Delahoyde name back to the Normans in Ireland, as well as having tracked down the few remaining Delahoydes in the world. My mom, a Bolin, who is originally from Germany, has a good deal of information about her Swedish/German ancestry, but sadly, I don’t know much about it.

In regards to ending this letter, I’m all for it.

Sincerely,
Steve

Date: 20 Jul 2001
From: Delahaye, Gabriel
Subject: RE: Delahaye Vs. Delahoyde

Hey Hey Delahoyde,

That does not work as well with your name as with mine. Ahoy Delahoyde is better. Also, that is the last real reference I think I am going to make to our names, before it becomes tiring…unless I think of something really interesting to say about it, for example: my name, Delahaye, is also the name of a famous sports car made in France between 1894 and 1952. Rita Hayworth owned one. At one point I tried to make up some kind of name for myself like Gabriel S.C. (for Gabriel Sports Car), but it didn’t work and as it turned out, it was a dumb idea from the very beginning.

These strange people in your neighborhood are either frat boys, or orphaned children whose parents died in a horrible accident. If it is the latter, they are avoiding social services at all costs—trying to live on their wits and love alone—and a simple phone call would probably clear up the disturbance.

I once tried out for a play myself. They made me improvise a scene where I was warning people of a coming alien invasion. I made zero callbacks. I don’t think they even wanted me to work on set-construction.

In an unpublished letter to McSweeney’s I claimed to be descended from a long line of Merchant Marines and I would like to publicly admit here that that is a lie. My great grandfather on my mother’s side died at a poker game and family legend has it that he had a royal straight flush in his hand. My uncle dropped out of MIT to go to India and “experience” real life. My mother and father met on a French-speaking kibbutz in Israel, back when they were hippies. It is true that my grandfather on my mother’s side fought in the last Great War and was the only member of his battalion to survive, but he was a foot soldier. I challenge you to find one goddamn Merchant Marine in the whole filthy lot.

Do you ever go to Scottsdale? That’s right outside Phoenix isn’t it? One time I stayed at a fancy resort there and at night the pool lit up with all kinds of colors. Also, I had a girlfriend from there once, but she ran away from home and stopped talking to her parents. There are, incidentally, three 7-Elevens in Scottsdale. Have you lived in Phoenix your whole life? Do you plan on dying in Phoenix? Have any of your girlfriends ever run away from home? Oh, and what’s your position on Martin Luther King Day if you don’t mind my asking?

Date: 20 Jul 2001
From: Delahoyde
Subject: RE: Delahaye Vs. Delahoyde

Of the Haye,

I wrote your name as such, because in French, or possibly Spanish, that is what your name would mean. I have occasionally played with my own name, trying to find odd things like this. The best I’ve found is taking my entire name and cutting it up to form the moniker of some long forgotten French/Spanish religious figure: “St. Eve of the Hoyde (De La Hoyde)”. Unfortunately, like your “Haye”, I have no idea what “Hoyde” means.

In answer to your queries, I actually live on the border of Phoenix and Scottsdale. Every morning I drive through it to get to work, which is in the college/suburb area called Tempe. I think, since your last visit, there have been many more 7-11 convenience stores added. I haven’t had time to make an official count, but I would imagine that it’s topped out around fifteen. I was born and raised in Phoenix (Glendale actually, a little farming community on the outskirts of town), but plan on moving away soon.

Portland seems to be the best choice, as I travel up to there quite a bit, loving it more and more each time. I would expect that a move would take place sometime early next year.

As for a holiday for Martin Luther King: It’s not well known, but Arizona had a holiday all along before all of the controversy began, but it was on Sunday. Unfortunately, during the excitement over this, I believe the employees of our state government were not opting to honor this great man, but simply to get another day off (those employed by the state still recognize Columbus Day as a free day) or to settle the anger aimed at us. It’s still my opinion that we should have left the holiday on a Sunday, as I think Mr. King, a religious leader, would have wanted this recognition on a day of prayer. But if I had to choose an official, “day-off” holiday between a barbarian like Columbus, or an honorable gentleman like Martin Luther, I would choose the civil rights leader any day.

Now, I should probably ask you some intriguing questions: In your writing (I’m assuming you write), what sort of things do you write? Other hobbies/fascinations/loves/reasons-for-being? Have you ever been to a water-park and didn’t enjoy it? These are the things I simply must know!

In conclusion, along the lines of names and girlfriends and Scottsdale, Arizona, I did once have a girlfriend who lived in Scottsdale, who was, I believe the first to realize that my name, Steven Thomas Delahoyde, examined as initials, spelled STD, an acronym for Sexually Transmitted Disease. The shadow of this has followed me ever since.

Thanks,
Steve

Date: 20 Jul 2001
From: Delahaye, Gabriel
Subject: RE: Delahaye Vs. Delahoyde

Dear STD,

The best I can find for la Haye, in French, is the Hague, which seems strange, the Netherlands being neither here nor there. Although, in Amsterdam the homeless people drink Heineken, which, to an American like me, just looked very hoity-toity. “Get down off your high horse,” I would say, “what, Schlitz isn’t good enough for you?”

St. Eve of the Hoyde is very nice. My friend Travis made up a game called Village, which I can teach you if you’d like. But everyone in Village has a different name, and Travis’ name is Dexter St. John. The game of Village involves a character named Le Marquis.

Also, my father’s name is a delightful acronym itself. His initials are BED.

You asked me about writing and that is a difficult question. I was at an author signing once and a young man, very high on marijuana, asked the author what his book was about and when the author said he wasn’t quite sure the young man was kind of mad. “You wrote it, you don’t know what it’s about?” The author nodded, that’s right. I wrote a story a few weeks ago about a robot—Jefferson—and a dinosaur—Gregory—who are best friends and roommates. These two characters are both professional fighters on the World Class Robot vs. Dinosaur Grudge Match Circuit. The story takes place right around the time that the robot fighters begin having lasers installed in their eye ports. In the final scene, Gregory and Jefferson must face off in The Presidential, the largest tournament of the year, to the death. Of course, Gregory and Jefferson both make it to the final round where they must fight each other, and although I never say it explicitly, Gregory sacrifices himself to Jefferson. What makes this final gesture so powerful, I think, is that Jefferson has been reprogrammed to forget about his friendship with Gregory, a cruel capacity the dinosaur lacks. Thus, the dinosaur is aware of the fact that his best friend won’t even be aware of the fact that he gave himself over, a totally altruistic act. But the story kind of sucks. That’s the closest thing to a plot that I’ve written in a long time. Sometimes I write about funerals, or about sitting on the couch and waiting for the phone to ring. Also, video games and Crispin Glover figure very heavily into my creative vernacular. I have written haiku on both these themes.

Also, I write about girls.

Sometimes it is hard to admit what one really loves/lives for. There is that intrinsic desire to come off as smart, noble, cool. If I was to say that my favorite things were Russian cinema and NPR, foie gras and pastis, backpacking through South America and neo-realist literature it sounds somehow more fascinating than deuce-deuces of Budweiser and walking around the house naked. Probably, though, the greatest collective moments of my life have been on long car rides.

Also, I like rock and roll.

As for water parks, I think that’s more your territory. Are there a lot of them in Arizona? I used to go to a water park every summer, with camp, and I did love it. Michigan—not so many. There’s a waterslide at the pool. My parents’ house has a hot tub. When they first moved in it was winter and my mom decided that she didn’t want to waste money on the electricity to heat it so she turned it off and the pipes froze and burst. I looked under the cover recently and there is a whole ecosystem growing in there now. My favorite thing about Arizona was the mist porches. Correct me, Steve, but if anyone reading this has never been to Arizona, many restaurants—including Burger King—have outside eating areas with a metal tube running the perimeter of the ceiling. There are tiny holes in the pipe that spray a constant mist of water. It gets so hot, at least during the summer, that the water cools your skin but then immediately evaporates. My other favorite thing about Arizona are the long expanses of highway through the desert, because if you look in the distance you can see entire thunder storms, but still be under the sunshine. For a little while, recently, I was really into trying to videotape and photograph lightning storms. There aren’t many, in New York, but once in awhile. Then I went on the internet and this guy in Australia chases storms and has some of the most amazing photographs that I gave up.

And you? Do you write about things? Do you like the mist porches? Tell me STD.

Date: 23 Jul 2001
From: Delahoyde
Subject: RE: Delahaye Vs. Delahoyde

“Village” Person,

My apologies for taking so much time to reply to your last e-mail. For some reason, perhaps due to the ominous clouds that have been looming over the city for some time now, I was not able to log onto my e-mail account over the weekend. I would assume that you’ve been pacing around your house, worried sick, concerned with my whereabouts. Oh ye of little faith, I am still here! Here I am! Let’s start this thing…

First off, the misting systems that line the overhangs of our grease-pit restaurants. Yes, there are quite a few of them in Arizona. No, they are not very valuable. Their intended purpose is to comfort those who choose to sit underneath them with their expulsion of a cooling mist. Yet the engineers who designed these systems, nice people that they are, never took into account that on this planet, Earth, there is wind. So, in the summer, when it is always miserably hot, if one sits outside then one will run the risk of heat stroke while watching these misters, devices that are supposed to spray water down upon you, shoot mist, caught in hot updrafts, upwards into the air. Basically, these things were made just waste water.

Concerning my writing, I do indeed write quite a bit. All sorts of writing really, but nothing monumental, such as a lengthy book about the Incan civilization or maybe something about clever ways to cook things. As of late, I’ve been writing a good deal of prank e-mails. I get a company in mind, find their e-mail address and write odd little things to them. Usually there are no responses, but occasionally people understand the humor, write back, and sometimes send me things per my strange requests (like the people who run Take-A-Number Systems, a company that makes those Take-A-Number machines, who sent me a dozen or so number 72’s).

Of importance, as well: About one month ago, my friend Waki (who has a quirk name) and I wrote and recorded a song based on a city councilman who was running for reelection. Said song was entitled “The Greg Stanton Experience In The Key Of Patriotism”. The song was perplexingly odd, making reference to both Gina Gershon and the shores of Ipanema, though it was also astoundingly patriotic. It was sent to the councilman via e-mail, after which we received several nice e-mails from his campaign staff. As we have been told, the song is being pressed onto CD’s and being handed out to volunteers.

What is your take on politics? Who was your favorite Monkee? If you could, would you own and manage some sort of road-side attraction like a large ball of twine museum or maybe a corral of shaven buffalo? Wasn’t that a weird question?

Thanks,
Steven

Date: 23 Jul 2001
From: Delahaye, Gabriel
Subject: RE: Delahaye Vs. Delahoyde

Steve,

I use an Outlook based email system. You can rate the importance of incoming emails, urgent for example, which sticks a red flag next to the sender’s name and subject heading. Your email is of “normal” importance, which is as much as anyone could ask for, I suppose.

This weekend I went to Coney Island for the first time. My girlfriend and I only had five dollars between us, mostly in change, and I used it to buy a hot dog and french fries. She was really mad, later, and said I didn’t Think of her—she’s vegetarian—and that we could have gone to the Taco Bell across the street where there was something she could actually eat. I said, “Why didn’t you just say something, why didn’t you say that you wanted to go to the Taco Bell across the street?” Because," she said, “and besides, it doesn’t matter whether I said anything or not, you are a sucky jerk.” “Oh come on,” I said, “you had some of the fries.” “You drank all of the seltzer water too,” she said, “on the train you offered me ice but all of the seltzer water was gone.” I told her she could have had half my hotdog and she hit me with her knuckles. Rest assured, though, our love is true and pure and we will get through this thing.

In the mornings there are men in shirts and ties who hand out flyers by my subway station. These men are running for positions on the city council, but I don’t think it’s New York city council, it’s some kind of fractional politics of the outer-boroughs. I never take one, because I know I won’t read it, and I won’t vote. I vote for bigger stuff. I was lucky because New York isn’t a swing state and my vote for Nader would not change the outcome of our electoral distribution, but I’m not going to vote for the Long Island City treasurer or whatever. Who cares? But I feel bad for these men in shirts and ties, because I know they are trying. Nobody cares, by the way, is the answer to my previous, seemingly-rhetorical question. I think that these small-time politicians are like minor-league ball-players, or writers for literary magazines, there is a small chance they will make it to the big time, and the route they take to get there is honorable, but what they really need is money, a lot of money. C.R.E.A.M! Steve, C.R.E.A.M!

I used to write prank letters to companies, in High School. I got a lot of free candy from the Mars corporation when I complained that M&Ms melted in my hand. The worst part about this con was that it wasn’t even original. I wrote that one my freshman year, after hearing about a senior who did the same thing. Last winter, some friends and I were at my apartment and we were trying to think of something to do. First we called other people’s houses and said we were having a party, with a hand signal everybody would scream and whoop-it-up in the background, but no one believed us and no one came over. So, then we bought some gin and Squirt and we went to the computer lab and made a list of all the friends we knew who weren’t hanging out with us and we coupled them off. Everyone took a different couple and set up fake Yahoo accounts in their names, then wrote secret-crush love letters from both parties. Each love letter ended with a secret rendezvous at a particular cafe on the following Wednesday at 8 o’clock. People got really mad, they said their privacy had been breached. They mostly just blamed Travis and I, but a whole bunch of kids were involved. Fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke, though, right Steve. I recently was the recipient of a prank email. It was from a guy named Christian LeRoi, and he lived in California. He wanted to know if I wanted to get together for dinner, or to drink life blood. At first the email kind of freaked me out, but then I realized a few facts: -I got the email at my work address, when I reserve all of my goth-webring activity to a specialized earthlink address. -Christian LeNoir, come on! -He signed it Kewl, and that’s how I knew it was a TravisTrap.

You said that you work in a biochem lab or something of that sort. What do you do there? It’s obviously lucrative enough to own a car…please inform.

Thanks,
G.

Date: 24 Jul 2001
From: Delahoyde
Subject: RE: Delahaye Vs. Delahoyde

Can’t Think Of Anything Funny To Call You,

Per your last message concerning this Outlook e-mail system, I also use the software, and so I am sending this e-mail “High Priority”, as well as something that states: “Do Not Forward by Wednesday July, 25th”. I have no what that means or what, if any, significance there is attached to it. You might want to try forwarding the message before Wednesday, just to see what sort of wily repercussions might occur.

As for what it is that I do, I work for a medical company that manufactures rehabilitation machines for sporting related injuries (repairing fractures and such). There is also a bio-med division that makes injectables which has to do with the healing of athletes or the occasional “normal” injured person. There is one in development that won’t be released for another few years that will cause damaged skin and bone to heal itself six times faster than the normal human body could. I would like to say that I am at the forefront of these inventions, working in a laboratory, wearing a lab coat, playing with rats, but sadly, I work in the Human Resources department, working with our field sales employees. I spend no time in labs, except when I need to confront someone about something or ask them to sign things. It is dull work, but the pay is good and the people have friendly demeanors about them.

As for my high school adventures, there is one in particular that must be told. In my junior year, I made a short film for my French class entitled “Die Stereo Boy! Die! Die! Die!” In this epic tale of greed and deception, I pooled my talents to write, direct, and co-star. The idea for this film had spurned from an assignment in which we were to take a single piece of French dialogue from our textbook and continue the rest of the conversation as best we could. My filmmaking team and I approached our teacher, who green-lighted our idea of filming our conversation instead of writing it out. The first line of dialogue had to do with a young man accidentally breaking his brother’s portable radio. We continued this by having the older brother enter the scene and shooting his sibling over the broken radio. After which, the best friend of the recently-deceased-brother entered the scene and shot the alive brother. As the friend walked away, the dying brother used his last bit of energy to finish off the friend. Understand? This film premiered in class and while the students enjoyed it, our instructor turned a shade of white I’d not seen previously. I think she was expecting less violence and/or better spoken French.

The only remaining copy of this video was taken with Barry, one of the actors, when he moved back to Ireland. We understand the film is very big there.

What is your take on violence in cinema? What is it that you do for a living? Did you hear that Eudora Welty died?

Sincerely,
Steve

Date: 24 Jul 2001
From: Delahaye, Gabriel
Subject: RE: Delahaye Vs. Delahoyde

Steve,

While I understand how you might find your job boring, you should not lose sight of the fact that you, contrary to most people in the workforce, have the opportunity-no matter how rare-to confront scientists in their laboratories. I’m not 100% certain how these confrontations take place, or whether they are even work related, but I’ve got a pretty few ideas. This, also, seems like a good place for you to find inspiration for your writing. I’ve never worked in the proximity of scientists, but I bet they can be a bunch of pantywaisted debutantes when they feel like it. Being in Human Resources, do you get to hire scientists? Interview them?

I’m not sure your question, what do I do for a living, is really appropriately phrased. Not to nitpick, but ‘living’ seems like a bit of an exaggeration, and ‘do’ is also somewhat hyperbolic. I answer phones sometimes, write email, I’ve been known to ‘surf’ the information superhighway. My boss, incidentally, once worked as an assistant on Knight Rider, thereby granting her ‘best boss ever’ status. I work in publishing.

Your film’s title translated into French is: Meurs Gargon de la Channe Stirio! Meurs! Meurs! Meurs! That, I’m sorry to say, is not a very good title. But I’ve taken the liberty of renaming it Le Fils Qui Aimait Le Rock (Mort). This means, literally, The Son Who Loved Rock (Dead). I think that last part in parentheses really gives it something special.

On filmic violence: My step-mother and my father separated many years ago. Then they divorced. That was also a long time ago. During their separation she took me out to a movie and dinner. Our relationship was already becoming estranged, not only because of her physical absence, but also due in large part to her new life as a born again Christian. When I got in the car she asked me what movie I’d like to see. I told her that I’d heard good things about Pulp Fiction, but she said she’d rather not, that it was too violent. So we went to see the new Wesley Snipes movie involving killer skydivers—not to be confused with Point Break, the Keanu Reeves movie about skydiving bank robbers—many people died in this movie, one man was drowned in a toilet I think. At dinner I told her that I thought it was ridiculous, her refusing to see Pulp Fiction on the grounds it was too violent and then taking me to see something so shitty with such blatant disregard for human life. But that, she said, was cartoon violence. Then she invited me to come visit her in her new apartment in Washington D.C. That may have been the last time I saw her. Once, years later, and this is true, I saw her with her new husband—he’s a military man—in a famous hat store in Chicago right near the apartment she had first moved to after the separation. She’d always loved that hat store, the man who owned it used to make hats for Marlene Deitrich or somebody, and as I passed by I thought of her. But she was in the window!! It was so weird. I hurried my pace so she wouldn’t see me.

Favorite films, favorite books? I know that’s a touchy subject. Ignore it if you want, because I’d probably ignore it if you asked me.

G.

Date: 25 Jul 2001
From: Delahoyde
Subject: RE: Delahaye Vs. Delahoyde

Gabriel,

I appreciate your title change, as we have had little luck shopping the film around to the major studios for a remake. This hip, cutting-edge name might now land us that “big deal”, where we are given a large budget, movie-star cameos (i.e. Lorenzo Lamas, Bob Denver, etc.), and a sweeping orchestral theme, composed by someone very hip at the moment, perhaps Mandy Moore.

To answer your question about my job and its relation to scientists, I do know several of them and have, at times, interviewed them. They are all very nice people of all sizes and shapes. One in particular, Michael, used to help me give tours of the facility for sales people who were in town. He would take them around the various labs, showing them all of the expensive equipment, trying to explain what each piece did. That, perhaps, is the one flaw in the personalities of scientists: they tend to believe that everyone understands their field of study. Michael would often go into great detail about the things he was working on. Slowly, every single person in the room would start to mentally dwindle off into various levels of day dreaming. At the end of his diatribe of scientific jargon, you would look around the room to see everyone staring blankly, or examining their shoes.

As for my favorite books and movies, I would rather skip that, as I might miss one or admit to liking something and then regretting having said that I did.

I enjoyed your story about your step-mother, as incidences of coincidental meeting are always interesting. Those sorts of things happen all of the time in Phoenix. For a city of four-million people and spatially larger than Los Angeles, this place seems like a small town. Anyone you meet knows someone you know, you run into people all of the time in obscure places nowhere near their normal “haunting grounds”, and most everyone seems to have a story about their experience with the local long-running children’s television show entitled “Wallace and Ladmo”.

My association to the aforementioned show was, in my opinion, more unique than most others who had stories. In third or fourth grade, my father used to have SBE (Society of Broadcasting Engineers) meetings in an office right next to the studio where they filmed the show. Frequently, I was taken along, forced to entertain myself for several long hours. During this time, I would wander around the expansive set, exploring the various nooks and crannies of this fictional world. To amuse myself, I began to subtly rearrange items on bookshelves and those hung on walls. The next morning, I would watch the program, pointing out to my friends the tiny discrepancies once a week, with books moved and clocks set to different times. These friends of mine chose either not to care or believe me, but for me, it was an exciting time to be alive.

So now, Gabriel, any exciting brushes with fame and/or celebrity? How are people in publishing? Do you tip well when out to eat? Have you ever been to Spain? I mean, really been to Spain?

Sincerely,
Steve

Date: 25 Jul 2001
From: Delahaye, Gabriel
Subject: RE: Delahaye Vs. Delahoyde

Steve,

Ha ha. SPAIN! I’ll get to that later.

I’ve got to admit that, with the small exception of the scientists, “Wallace and Ladmo” is the most interesting thing you’ve talked about so far. What a name! If you have a chance in your next email I’d really like some more information. There was a regional kids show while I was growing up that was taped somewhere in the outskirts of Detroit. It was called Kidbits. There was this Bill-Nye-Science-Guy kind of guy, standing alone in his basement, doing little experiments. This show was on for hours, right before cartoons. If you were watching Kidbits it meant you woke up too early, way too early, and that you probably fell asleep on the couch waiting for the real entertainment to begin. Even now, in New York, I’ve found some fellow Michiganders with whom I can discuss Kidbits. Poor guy.

On the subject of chance encounters: I went out to dinner with a friend and ran into some kids I knew from back home. They were at the table right behind ours. We all used to work together at a liquor store. They’d just moved to New York, and they live ten blocks from me, in Queens.

I spent some time in Europe, going to school. The University of Lausanne, in Switzerland. One of my best friends, Mark, was concurrently studying in Grenada, Spain. I went to Paris for Christmas. My grandparents on my father’s side live there. My father came too, to celebrate the holidays. One night we went out to dinner at a nice restaurant. There were aperitifs, and wine, and then came the Grand Marnier sur glacons. Man, my dad was wasted. I told him how Mark was in Spain and that I wanted to visit him but couldn’t take the time out of school for the two-day train ride it would require to get down there. My dad was almost in tears when he told me he’d buy me a plane ticket, he said “How can I put a price, a price tag, how can I put a price tag, waiter, encore un Grand Marnier, how? Buy the ticket, visit, he’s your best friend, there is no price tag, you are my son.” I flew Iberia airlines. Where many airlines offer a complimentary beverage and maybe pretzels, Iberia comes around with a bowl of individually wrapped mints.

Mark was staying with a host family that owned a dog. The only member of this family I really remember was the older brother. He taught Mark one important phrase, I don’t know Spanish, but it meant “quit fooling yourself.” On Saturday nights there was a techno program that the older brother loved. He would go to a night club and bring a walkman. Out on the dance floor, he’d be listening to his radio show on the headphones, dancing to a completely different beat than everyone else. I think Mark had to go to court once to help the older brother, who’d beaten a guy up. Also, Granada is supposed to be, like, the world capital for sangria. We went to a bar one night that was known for its sangria and the crap tasted like Hawaiian Fruit Punch with little bits of pear floating in it and maybe some vodka.

We visited Seville and Barcelona too. Another friend of mine is named Andrew Ti. He works freelance as a computer programmer and goes to Columbia. While in Barcelona we met a guy named Andrew Chi, who looked just like Andrew Ti. Andrew Chi was also a computer science kind of guy, and also went to Columbia. He also said things that sounded just like something Andrew Ti would say, like walk into a Barcelona grocery store and say “Where’s the junk-food?” When I was leaving I said “see you when I get home, Andrew,” but Andrew Chi didn’t get the joke at all.

There was another guy in Barcelona from Portugal. He was a madman. One night he led everyone from the hostel on a wild goose-chase for the perfect little bar. Mostly, our group was just frat-ish Americans who wanted to get wasted, especially after an hour of walking around. I told him that I understood what he was doing, but that he should save it for another night, that all the kids behind him who were swearing under their breath just wanted to sit down. “But,” he said, “I did not come here to sit down, I came here to LIVE Barcelona.” We ended up drinking beers at the McDonalds, which was nice.

And you? Any Spanish adventures? Do people from one Human Resources Dept. know people in other HR Depts.?

Date: 26 Jul 2001
From: Delahoyde
Subject: RE: Delahaye Vs. Delahoyde

Gabriel,

I’m glad you enjoyed the story of “Wallace and Ladmo”. Sadly, I have little more information on this bunch. If you want more information and happen to be in Arizona again, you can purchase dozens of books on them, as well as a few CD’s containing the show’s song parodies, and there has even been a play about their lives which periodically makes encore appearances in the various theaters throughout the valley, always to sold out crowds. That said, if one visits Arizona and makes reference to this program, it’s an automatic “in”.

I just remembered another family connection to the show, that being that my mother used to baby-sit for Ladmo’s children when she was young, gaining her certain bragging rights in her elementary school. Also, and this story might be of interest to you, my mother babysat for my father’s children from his first marriage. My dad and his ex-wife had moved from Colorado to across the street from my mother’s house. She was in her early teens at the time and watched the children, my two stepsisters. Later, my dad moved back to Colorado with his ex-wife, where they were divorced some years later. My father, who still owned the house across the street, moved back to Arizona. My mother, who was then nineteen and in school at ASU, started trying to win the affections of my father. Long story short, they began dating, married some time later and had me.

Is that a disturbing story? I’ve always found it to be kind of romantic, but now that I’ve written it, it sounds a little odd.

Moving on to foreign travels, I have never been to Spain, though I have spent a good deal of time abroad. The only story I can think of now concerns a summer spent in Ireland with my friend Davin. We were in Galway for a brief stint to attend a concert (Galway is on the other side of the island from Dublin). Of course as there is little to do during the day, we were bored to tears. The house we were staying in, Davin’s aunt and uncle’s, was neighboring a small farm that had livestock of all varieties, including cows. Having never touched cows in our lives, we thought it a good idea to attempt this feat. We hopped the fence and slowly walked towards the seemingly more docile of the herd. We would get about three feet away, hands outstretched, when the cow would stand up, at which point we would run with all our might and hop the fence to safety. We must’ve spent two hours trying to touch a damn cow without ever succeeding. I don’t really remember any details, but I’m sure that the humiliation of this event was soothed over many pints of beer.

Also on this trip, and again in Galway, I met the writer/director Michael Moore, who was pleasant even though Davin asked where in Canada he was from.

I’m exhausted today, so I’ll hand the conch back over to you now. What sorts of music do you listen to? Do you listen to music? Say I wanted to buy a CD for you, what sort of CD would I want to buy?

Sincerely,
Steve

Date: 26 Jul 2001
From: Delahaye, Gabriel
Subject: RE: Delahaye Vs. Delahoyde

Steve,

The story about your dad sounds kind of creepy, but it could be in the wording. I don’t know. Then again, he didn’t leave his ex-wife for the babysitter. That would have been kind of gross. This is different. It seems like there’s so much stuff in the media these days about older men lusting after young girls. Earlier this week a girl at my work said that she’d seen “Lolita”—the new one, with Jeremy Irons—and that it was the sickest movie. I wondered if she even knew about the book, and if she’d seen “American Beauty” and thought that was sick, too. Even though I thought “American Beauty” was quite good, they totally seemed to gloss over the disturbing nature of Spacey’s relationship to the girl. It was more of a comic vehicle for his mid-life-crisis-driven return to adolescence. Like, ‘oh, he overheard her saying he should work out, and now look, he’s working out. Ha ha! He’s so funny, look at his face.’ Lolita is written from prison. I! don’t think it’s a heavy-handed moral statement, like Crime and Punishment it is more an exploration about the mind-set of someone acting on their darker impulses, but there are certain consequences to acting on those impulses. Spacey just gets killed for being mistaken as gay. Are your parents still married? Are you an only child? My mother remarried when I was nine. I have a brother through that marriage. He’s technically a step-brother, but I’ve known him almost all his life and we even look alike. I’m a little better looking than him. Actually, I’m a lot better looking than him, he’s too skinny and he smokes cigarettes. He’s going to be starting college in the fall and I hope he passes all his classes. I hope he gets a PhD, because then, when I beat him at Scrabble, I’ll be able to say that I beat a PhD in Scrabble. A friend of mine went to Harvard and I almost beat him at Scrabble once. I was really excited, because I was going to beat a Harvard graduate at scrabble, then he spelled ‘quartz’, or something, on the triple word score and totally trounced me.

I went out with a girl from Iowa once. She always talked about tipping cows and having field parties. Do you know what a field party is? A field party is where everybody drives out to a field and has a party. Actually, field parties sound like a lot of fun and I wish I could go to one. People in her town had to drive a half hour to see each other because they all lived on large stretches of land. They gave each other sides of beef for the holidays, gigantic slabs of meat that weighed twenty, thirty pounds. She always started her emails and letters, any communication in general, with ‘sup’, so it was doomed from the very beginning. Her sister is really hot too, so, you know…that’s no good when you’re trying to form an important relationship. Now I date an only child and it is much better. Don’t buy me any CDs, Steve. We’re not there, not yet at least. I’ve got a lot of CDs anyway. I used to do a radio show in college. For a couple semesters I had the graveyard shift, Sunday morning from 3-6am. There was this one guy, I think he delivered donuts to gas stations, who called every week. He was very nice, but he always requested the crappiest music. Worse than that, the songs he wanted were always eight minutes long. One night/morning he asked for this one song that was so bad I just cut it off after about a minute. Some friends of mine were at the station with me. He called back and asked what happened. We told him the song was too long but asked if he wanted anything else. He said we were assholes. He kept calling all night. At one point he said he was going to come down to the station and kill us. We stopped answering the phone. An hour later there was a loud banging at the door. It turned out to just be the next DJ, but we didn’t find that out until we’d gained the courage to come out from under the desk.

I had another threat on my life when I worked at the liquor store. This man, with no shirt on and a gigantic chest covered in white hair, came in and asked for a bottle of vodka. His breath was flammable. We told him that it was illegal to sell to someone who was already drunk. He slammed his hand on the counter and told us that he knew the mayor, that he was on a task force for city hall. That’s great, we told him, but you still can’t buy any alcohol here, and you have to put a shirt on. He said we should call the police. We told him there were phones in the vestibules, that he could call the police himself. He said Go ahead, call the police, they’ll tell you who I am. Call the police yourself, we repeated, we’re not calling them so you go call them, do you have a quarter? He was furious, CALL THEM! He screamed. Then he said he was going to go home and get his machine gun and shoot all of us dead. I’ve got a very strong feeling that I got drunk that night. I’m also pretty sure that he didn’t have a home.

G.

Date: 30 Jul 2001
From: Delahoyde
Subject: RE: Delahaye Vs. Delahoyde

Gabriel,

My apologies again for delaying the conversation, letting things sit like I have. I wasn’t in the office on Friday and couldn’t log onto to the server at work from home. I suppose, if I was capable of remembering e-mail addresses, I could’ve created one of those free, internet-based mail accounts and written something there. But I didn’t and it resulted in a disruption in our once-a-day pattern. With hope and a little bit of good ol’ American can-do spirit, we’ll get right back in the swing of things.

First things first: my dad. I went back and re-read what I’d written about my father dating the babysitter. You were right in your sentiment that it was creepy. Entirely creepy. The actions themselves, however, really aren’t. As I have been led to understand, my father, a kindly, mostly bald man, didn’t pay much attention to their babysitters and my mother only had sat for them once or twice, because, I’m assuming, she was too wrapped up babysitting for the aforementioned television clown. Okay, in re-reading that last sentence, I don’t feel too confident that I’m changing this creepy image (“aforementioned television clown”?). Regardless, I think that the fatal flaw to the telling of it, was the telling of it very quickly via electronic message. Moving on…

Regarding your question about my sibling count, I have none. I am an only child, for which I have always felt a bit cheated. I was extremely envious of people who had brothers and sisters, even if they were in constant battles with one another (which always seemed the case, particularly amongst brothers). To make matters worse, the area that I grew up in was heavily populated with Mormon households, which meant many, many large families surrounding our house with only three people. Just to continue on with Mormons, I think I read somewhere that Arizona has the largest per-capita population of this religious group, second only to Utah. On a side note, there is a small town on the border of Arizona and Utah called Colorado City and is the only large community in the United States that practices polygamy. One summer when I was young, my father and I, on a trip to Utah, drove through this place. The houses were tremendously large, with clumsy rooming additions put onto anywhere that they’d fit. At one point we passed by two young women of maybe twenty-five who were surrounded by at least fifteen children. We assumed that this was all one family. It was an interesting little area, something you don’t usually see, but we couldn’t wait to leave and leave we did.

We used to have a variation of field parties in my high school, but they were called Dockers (presumably a hip way of referring to the boondocks, or the outskirts of town). As you’d mentioned before, outside of Arizona there are wide, expansive deserts. These dockers were primarily a tradition in my high school, as it was a Jesuit school in the middle of town, meaning that its students lived in all parts of the valley. For our loud, obnoxious party needs, we would meet out in a deserted area about thirty miles outside of town. I didn’t attend too many of these events, but from what I understand, many times they were broken up by police officers, sometimes finding them using a helicopter to spot we juvenile delinquents from above.

That’s all for me today, I think. For my question of the day, I wanted to ask if you’d heard about that couple, Jason Black and Frances Schroeder, who are putting their anticipated baby’s name on the auction block, hoping that a corporation will pay them $500,000 to name their baby after a product. What do you think about that? I read that this Mr. Black is in publishing in New York, do you know of him?

Bye-bye,
Steve

Date: 30 Jul 2001
From: Delahaye, Gabriel
Subject: RE: Delahaye Vs. Delahoyde

Steve,

This weekend my girlfriend and I got to discussing television clowns, most notably Bozo the Clown. His show was taped in Chicago, so I’m not sure whether he made it to Arizona or not, but probably. For whatever reason, I don’t ever remember watching Bozo at home, just at my grandparents’ house. At one point he would call down a child from the audience to play this game that involved throwing a ping pong ball into buckets set progressively farther from the contestant. Depending on how many buckets you could successfully get the ping pong ball into-without it bouncing out-the pile of toys you won at the end grew exponentially bigger. This game always made me terribly nervous, because I knew that ping pong balls were visually deceptive, and that it would be so easy to overthrow, and their bouncing potential was high. I might have turned away from the television at this point. My girlfriend, on the other hand, told me she’d always thought she’d be so good at this game when she was little. She was just positive that she’d win because it looked so easy. I laughed at her and said, “You’re so full of yourself.” She said that I was just mad because I never won anything when I was little, and my mom made me wear a Speedo bathing suit to the public pool. I told her that if she’d been on the Bozo the Clown show she would have biffed it so hard that her alcoholism would be raging even harder than it does now, and that her public humiliation would have been on a scale not reached since the time they let Rick Moranis into the movies. She punched me in the neck with her knuckles and made me admit that Rick Moranis was a good comedic actor, which he is.

Your email was the first I’d heard of the baby-auction. Mr. Black does not work for my company and I have never met him. He probably works for the Paris Review. It is not surprising, this whole thing. Did you ever hear about the couple who found a duck with no feet in a pond outside of their house? The man had a brother/cousin/relative who worked for the Nike and they had the Nike create a special pair of duck shoes that they strapped to the end of the ducks legs. Then it flew away. That is a good story. Anything, really, with animals wearing cross-trainers is good. I hope that McDonalds wins the auction. I hate them, but it would be funny if that stupid couple had to name their baby McRib, or Big N’ Tasty. The other company that I hope wins is Nintendo, so that they have to name their child Donkey Kong or Tony Hawk Pro-Skater. Sonic the Hedgehog would also be a good name for a baby, but I think everybody is pretty confident that Sega will stay out of the bidding wars.

I’ve been to a lot of parties that have been broken up by the police. Not because I’m ever invited to cool parties, but just because I grew up in a small town with an oversized police force. My favorite thing about these parties was that when the cops showed up everyone would run inside the house and the music would get turned off and people would stop talking. Like, maybe we were going to fool the cops into thinking they had the wrong address. We never had helicopters, but that sounds very exciting. I would like that more than anything. Did they ever land the helicopters? I’ve never seen a helicopter blow up, which it would seem happens a lot in big cities if you watch the movies. There’s always some kind of crap exploding in the sky and ramming into a skyscraper, but I’ve never seen it, or even heard about it happening. There are a lot of preconceived notions about the big city that I have found debunked since I moved to New York:

1) Animals rarely, if ever, escape from the zoo and run loose through the city.
2) The rear doors of armored cars never fly open and let loose a snowfall of hundred dollar bills.
3) No one who dresses in tights can fly.
4) Most people who commit crime are not dressed in Prada.
5) Most banks do not have chandeliers.
6) People who work in publishing are not necessarily better read than normal people.
7) Scientists do not run through the streets in their lab coats announcing new discoveries.
8) No one ever walks into a bar and says “The next round is on me, It’s a boy!”
9) There is no bar where everybody knows your name, and that might be a good thing.
10) Just because a city never sleeps does not mean that you shouldn’t.

Tell me about your favorite place in Arizona to go that is not a bar…it can be a bar but you better have some good stories about it. Preferably your favorite place will be:
a) an amusement park
b) a friend’s houseboat
c) any houseboat
d) the petting zoo
e) a pizzeria where the waiters do magic tricks
f) a pornographic movie theater that has now been renovated into a video game arcade
g) the chess club

I look forward to hearing from you.
Your friend,
Gabriel.

Date: 31 Jul 2001
From: Delahoyde
Subject: RE: Delahaye Vs. Delahoyde

Gabriel,

In the past hour, I have reinstated my feelings of resentment towards the business world, in particular, my part in it. The company had hired two new employees, a father and son to be specific, to work somewhere in our manufacturing department. As our department is currently very understaffed, I took it upon myself to perform the duty of giving them their new hire paperwork/orientation. This includes a drug test. This test requires me to hand the new employee a little stick with a piece of foam on it and tell them to suck on it for two minutes. After the allotted time they hand the spit soaked instrument back to me (I am, at this point, wearing rubber gloves) and I squeeze the saliva into a little device that can detect drug remnants. It is disgusting and awkward.

I feel better now and will move on to more interesting topics. First and quickly, I agree with you and your girlfriend that Rick Moranis can be, at times, a gifted comedian. Of that veteran SCTV crowd, I would say that he has been the most consistently enjoyable actor. Eugene Levy gains points for his work with Christopher Guest (“Waiting for Guffman”, etc.), but loses them all for his stint in “American Pie” (one of the worst films I’ve ever seen). Martin Short has never been funny.

As for favorite places, I can’t seem to think of any right now. My home is quickly becoming my favorite locale, as I am there so very rarely. But I suppose if I were to have to choose, which I have to, there would be a few:

1) Near the Arizona/New Mexico border, there is a small town named Greer. It’s a hidden away little area in the mountains, filled with lakes, greenery, and bears. Lots of bears. Also, almost all of the car dealers in Phoenix own cabins there, so when you are out to lunch at one of the two restaurants, you’ll recognize a good number of them from their cheaply produced commercials.

2) My friend Davin’s home that is on the top section of a duplex in Portland. Its huge windows offer an amazing view of the city. At night, when I’m there visiting, trying to sleep on his horribly uncomfortable couch, the lights from downtown are just spectacular. A month or so ago, I was standing on the balcony with some people during a party when Davin’s brother joined us outside and began to yell things about the state of Texas. He was quite drunk.

3) There aren’t too many things in Phoenix that I enjoy seeing or doing, however there is a road, named Lincoln, which, from 24th St. to 44th St. is a terrific drive. It winds around golf courses, is surrounded by mountains, and can be driven on quite fast (it’s not a residential street). I don’t have any interesting stories about the road, other than all my life-changing events or thoughts have taken place on it or near it.

4) The only bar I regularly inhabit is called the Blarney Stone, a pseudo-Irish-pub in Scottsdale. The food is good, the drinks are cheap, and there are bands that pretend they are Irish by singing folk tunes quite poorly. Once, from across the bar, I thought I had seen an ex-girlfriend who I always run into at bars, but would rather not (every time I do she calls me for months). As I hadn’t driven and my friends didn’t want to leave, I spent hours hunched over the table for most of the evening trying to evade her line of sight. I have no idea if it was her or not.

aI think that is about all for this letter. I can’t think of any more interesting stories or places. And now, my pal, it’s your turn. What are your favorite areas? Favorite sayings? Favorite people from the 1940’s who flew planes? Favorite rap references to sexual deviance?

Sincerely,
Steve

Date: 1 Aug 2001
From: Delahaye, Gabriel
Subject: RE: Delahaye Vs. Delahoyde

Steve,

My favorite rap lyric of all time might be “you ain’t gotta be rich, but fuck that, how are we gonna get around on your bus pass?” It’s from a Jay-Z song, a girl raps it. I have a bus pass, so this is particularly true.

I haven’t seen American Pie, but it was written by a guy who grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan. That’s where I was born. One of my best friends lives in Grand Rapids and he said that the movie was a pretty accurate portrait of the city. There are more churches per square block in GR than any other city in the world. The people call themselves Grand Rapidians. My friend is also writing a screenplay, but I’m not sure what it’s about. There’s something about homeless geriatrics in love.

Did you have to administer the drug test to the father and son at the same time? What kind of age difference was there? They weren’t scientists, I gather, but do you have any father and son scientist teams? That would be nice. They could eat lunch together.

In Michigan one of our favorite places to go was to the IHOP. It took us forty-five minutes to drive there. On the way we would pass the Melody Theater: “Home to Michigan’s Finest Adult Entertainment”, and there was Also a 25 Hour Party Store, 747 (an airport themed strip club), and The Silver Cricket (a lesbian strip club). Also we drove by the Ford plant. For awhile we knew most of the waitresses at the IHOP and they gave us free coffee. One of them was named Dirty Red, she had long fingernails and drove a red sports car with a vanity plate that said Dirty Red. She called us either baby Or honey. I ate sausage there once and as I cut into it I was squirted with a thick spray of grease. All of the vegetarians laughed at me.

A lot of my friends are vegetarian. Some of them are starting to eat meat again, so that’s good. My friend in Grand Rapids is only vegetarian when girls are around, to get dates. I’ve never been one, but I’ve eaten plenty of meals without any meat in them. Once, I went to my friend Mark’s parents’ house when he was still a vegetarian. To accommodate, his mom would make elaborate meatless dishes, like Thai peanut noodles. Mark’s dad would get a rotisserie chicken at the grocery store, because he didn’t eat all the vegetarian stuff. I ate the Thai noodles, and Mark and his mom ate the noodles, and Mark’s dad ate a rotisserie chicken. Another time Jason and I—Jason used to be vegetarian for all the years I knew him, but now he cooks steak—went to Mark’s house early in the morning. He wasn’t awake but the door was open, so we went in and watched his television. Then we made some breakfast. Then we went for a drive. Then we came back and Emma came over and watched television with us. Then she left and we made some lunch. Then Mark woke up. Now Mark and Jason live together in a nice house in Ypsilanti and they both eat meat. Mark started eating meat again because the Burger King was selling chicken sandwiches for 99 cents and Mark couldn’t pass up such a deal.

My girlfriend is vegetarian too. But sometimes, in the morning, I put bacon and stuff into her food. I’ll make her a banana/strawberry smoothie with just the slightest bit of bacon in it, so that when she starts eating meat again she won’t get sick. She says she used to eat meat, before she turned vegetarian, but that she would eat an entire package of pepperoni in one sitting and decided that was unhealthy. I’ve tried telling her that I will love her more when she eats pepperoni but so far there’s no changing her.

Another favorite saying is from Marge on the Simpson’s, it’s something like “a lot of women say you’d be crazy to think you could change a man, but I say those women are quitters.”

Oh, and to end I would like to make a tiny plug. My grandfather just turned 78 a couple weeks ago, and he wrote the first poem of his life. He read it to the family on the fourth of July. This poem is going to be published In the next issue of Open City magazine, an upstanding literary journal put out in the New York area. I think everyone should get this book, and do the old man proud!

I’m not going to ask you any questions, I’m just going to ask you to work with me here, Steve.

G.

Date: 1 Aug 2001
From: Delahoyde
Subject: RE: Delahaye Vs. Delahoyde

Gabriel,

It is interesting that the topic of “American Pie” has come up so frequently in my life as of late, considering I did not enjoy the film and would rather forget those hours spent in front of the screen, taking in all of that nonsense. You see, there is a co-worker of mine who is a good, decent man, one whom I find agreeable in most situations. His major flaw is that he really enjoyed that movie, even going as far as to buy the DVD for extra scenes. We have fiercely debated our stance on the film, me explaining that I found it to be trashy and paper-thin, him finding it to be one of the greatest comedic works of our time. As part of a wager, he is taking me to see the sequel that comes out in a few weeks. Today, we set down the ground rules:

1) If I laugh at any point during the film, I have to pay him back for the price of admission

2) I can laugh without having to pay if I find something unintentionally funny or chuckle because the movie is so laughably awful.

3) I have to actually sit and honestly watch the film, not maintain an act of solemn seriousness in order to defeat him.

4) I have to pay for my own drinks, candy or popcorn.

Even though I am going to be wasting an hour and a half of my life, I feel that in doing so, I will be able to prove to this friend that there are people in this world that have different ideas of humor. We will see.

In regards to father and son scientific teams, I have never seen a grouping as such in my time working for medical companies. The question is interesting and I will ask my friend Waki who used to work in labs at Stanford. Perhaps he might be able to shed some light on this.

Concerning vegetarians, I used to have a roommate who was one. I was always surprised to find that he really enjoyed going to fast food restaurants. What he would do while there was to ask for a hamburger, but without The meat. Quite often, the look on the cashier’s face was priceless. At first they would not acknowledge what he’d said as they continued with their routine, but the sudden realization of what had been said seemed to bowl them over. Sometimes a manager would come out, sometimes the restaurant would refuse to sell him the product, but usually it was just the strange, taken aback look. I tried these burgers with just condiments once and was pleasantly surprised to find that they taste very similar.

Do you suppose that the journal your grandfather is writing for would be available in my dusty little ’burb? I would very much like to read his poetry. Do his poems make their readers sad or happy? Are they of the confusing, strange rambling kind? Or are they simplistic and funny, a la William Carlos Williams?

That is about all for now. I am leaving the office to attend a meeting far, far away. Hopefully it will rain on my way down the freeway, something that always lightens my mood and makes me appreciate this state of mine.

Sincerely,
Steve

Date: 1 Aug 2001
From: Delahaye, Gabriel
Subject: RE: Delahaye Vs. Delahoyde

Steve,

This wager is impossible. I’m sorry, but I just can’t see it being brought to any fruitful or informative end. First of all, whether you laugh or not during the sequel, this will not help in any way to prove your friend’s thesis that the original American Pie is one of the greatest comedic works of our time. Considering the nature of sequels, the second film will most likely have nothing to do with the first, except for some outrageous sex scenes. Laugh all you want, your friend’s statement remains unproven and completely subjective. Secondly, I think that the guidelines the two of you have set up are biased and unrelated to the task at hand. I will lay them out as follows:

1) If he is taking you a movie that you would not see under any other circumstances except his attempt to prove that this type of thing is funny, indeed hilarious, then you should not have to pay regardless of your reaction. His offer of the price of admission should be clean and with no strings attached. Remind him, if in fact you find this film funny then the self-congratulatory behavior he will most certainly act out is certainly worth the price of your admission. Either way, he wins. If you laugh, an honest laugh that is, then perhaps you should pay for his drinks, popcorn, and candy as acceptance of “defeat”.

2) What does that mean ‘find something unintentionally funny’? Usually the funniest things are unintentional. The entire Leprechaun Trilogy is, for the most part, hilarious despite all intentions to the opposite. This, of course, relates to my comments on rule one, that you should not have to pay under any circumstances. If you laugh at anything in this movie, even if it is just because someone coughs, you should pay for the drinks, popcorn, and candy. If the movie is awful then I recommend you cry, or scream, rather than chuckle. More appropriate.

3) Of course. Steve, I hope you never suggested otherwise.

4) See rule one.

I have never seen American Pie. I have seen American Movie, and American Beauty and American Psycho and American Graffiti and An American Werewolf in London.

It is my dream to make a film called An American Werewolf in America, you can help if you want.

Yes, Wendy’s in fact offers a vegetarian burger, which is just a bun with all the condiments. The recommended way to eat such a sandwich is with a side of fries, which you insert between the bun and condiments. I also call this a french fry sandwich and it is delicious. I have eaten many french fry sandwiches and I have made them in my own home. You might be surprised. A friend of mine in high school used to go to Wendy’s during lunch. After he placed his order and the cashier turned around to get his soda or whatever, he would pull the bendy mic across the counter and start rapping into it. You could hear the rapping in the kitchen. Mostly Bone Thugs in Harmony, if memory serves me.

As I’m sure you get bored at work, I have decided to tell you about a game that will allow you to while away the hours. You may or may not have noticed this, but many of today’s pornographic films are named after main-run features with clever little word changes. For example, American Beauty becomes American Booty, Forrest Gump becomes Forest Hump, and of course Edward Penis Hands. The game involves creating new titles for yet-to-be-made pornos using familiar titles. The only thing that does not count is creating a title for a film that already exists (for example the above examples). This game can provide you hours of fun. I played it with some friends and in one evening we came up with 150. I have listed some highlights to give you an idea:

-Don’t Tell Mom, The Babysitter Gives Head
-Six Degrees of Masturbation
-The Horse Fisterer
-You Can Cum on Me

KEEP A LIST!
ENJOY!
G.

Date: 2 Aug 2001
From: Delahoyde
Subject: RE: Delahaye Vs. Delahoyde

Gabriel,

I understand the points you made concerning our movie-going battle. You made some valid ones and for this I thank you. Perhaps in the heat of the moment we made some crucial mistakes in our organizational plan, developing some rules too quickly, others not quick enough. I will propose your corrections to my film-fan-foe in hoping that he, like I, will see the error of our ways and help to restructure our friendly type of war.

I do indeed get bored at work. Very bored. Right now, I am bored. Earlier? Bored. I am bored most of the at work, as looking at computer screens and speaking to people about subjects I care little about is boring. I will try out your porn-name game and see how well it works to cure the boredom. As these correspondence have been an exchange of ideas, allow me to share some of the ways I pass the time:

1) We have a camera attached to a computer in our department that is used for taking pictures for employees’ identification badges (they need them for access into certain parts of the building). These pictures, while being printed on their ID’s, are also posted to our intranet site. Because I am a “creative-type” (and I work in the department which allows me to do such stupid things), I take numerous pictures of myself in odd costumes. The picture that is currently featured on our website is of me wearing a bucket atop my head that has been covered with tinfoil (including the handle—now a chinstrap). I am also carrying a scepter (a stick covered in tinfoil) and am wearing rubber gloves (see former e-mail about me administering drug tests). These pictures, which only a handful of employees know about, has made me a sort of cult celebrity in our offices, with people checking weekly for a new image.

2) Writing. Most of my writing has been written in the workplace. Hardly any of it is about the workplace, but most all of it is created during those long stretches of boredom, perhaps because the mind wanders so often. For some reason it is the only place that I feel somewhat creative. I have always thought that if, under some strange circumstances, I became a wildly successful writer, I would need to arrange employment with a company, with the understanding that I should be given office work, but not actually have to do it. I would simply write, write, write.

3) Going outside and/or wandering around the building. A lot can be said for wandering and the outdoors. A lot.

While in the subject of work, I should tell you that today, while walking up the stairs to the second floor, the bottom part of my shoe came loose (the part that touches the ground—the sole I believe), almost to the point of falling off. As I was speaking with someone, I couldn’t stop and try to fix this defective piece of footwear, so I had to keep walking and stay in the moment of the conversation. Gradually, and I’m sure the person noticed, I began to change my walk, dragging my right foot as best I could to keep the shoe intact. I think the moral of this story is that you have to be prepared at all times for shoe breakdown, no matter how new the shoe (mine were only six months old). I wasn’t and paid the price for it: having the young lady give me numerous strange looks. When I returned to my office, I stapled the loose section to the rest of the shoe. So far, so good.

That seems enough for today. Again, I am happy and anxious because there are rain clouds in the distance and multiple weather warnings have been issued on the radio. It might turn out to be a wonderful night.

Sincerely,
Steve

Date: 3 Aug 2001
From: Allie M. D’Augustine
Subject: dear McSweeney’s

Dear McSweeney’s,

Why do you no longer publish letters?

Thanks,
Allie M. D’Augustine

Date: 3 Aug 2001
From: Allie M. D’Augustine
Subject: letters

Dear McSweeney’s,

Here is a second one, if the problem is a dearth of letters.

Thanks again,
Allie

Date: 4 Aug 2001
From: Delahaye, Gabriel
Subject: RE: Delahaye Vs. Delahoyde

Steve,

Thursday night I went with some friends to see Arthur Bradford and Zadie Smith read at the McSweeney’s store. We had early copies of Bradford’s new book from our connections to the publishing industry. He seemed excited and surprised to be signing actual books, since it’s not in stores yet. My friend Erin has read every possible manuscript of the forthcoming short-story collection and I think she’s got a bit of a crush on him, too. So, she was thoroughly disappointed when he signed “hope you enjoy this” in her book, since she’d already read it three times. Arthur gushed all over my girlfriend’s book, he wrote ‘you have a friendly face, it was so nice to see you.’ Erin was about to kick my girlfriend’s ass. I was about to kick Arthur’s ass, because I was going to maybe get some writing published in a magazine and then they said that they’d decided to run an Arthur Bradford story instead and had run out of space. No one kicked anybody’s ass, though, we just went home. Also, Zadie Smith sang a Destiny’s Child song.

Yesterday was my birthday. We took off work. It was nice. I was The Birthday King, and made decrees all day long. No one was to illuminate The Birthday King’s personal shortcomings, nor could they refute any of his decrees. Everyone had to laugh at The Birthday King’s jokes. We went to see Ghost World, which was very good, and then we went out to dinner and bowling and then to a bar. What a great birthday. This morning I woke up with a hangover, not from drink, but from power. I’m still a little woozy from that singular buzz that comes with royalty. It’s going to be a difficult readjustment to my normal life. Also, I bowled terribly. Everybody bowled better than me.

I heard that Raymond Carver used to have an office where he did all his writing. It was in the basement. He would come in at nine am, say hello to the security guard, and take the elevator down. Once he got inside he would lock the door, take off all his clothes, and write for eight hours. Then, at five o’clock, he’d put his suit back on, take the elevator up, and say goodbye to the security guard. Even if this is just a myth, it is a very good myth. Hopefully he had a comfortable chair. David Sedaris seems to have a similar plan. I read that he was offered a roll on Seinfeld but turned it down to continue moving furniture and writing whatever he wanted. Then I read that even now, as the wildly successful writer that he is, he’s looking for part time work as a waiter or something menial. He said something to the effect of “sometimes having all the time in the world is just too much time.”

Oh, and I forgot to tell you a little bit more about my grandpa’s poem. It is about the war. He fought in the war and he survived and the stories he has about it are terrifying and important. The poem is a pastiche of letters he wrote to my grandmother from training camp up until the moment he debarked on the beaches. He fought in the Battle of the Bulge, which is a very famous battle. If you ask most people about the Battle of the Bulge they have at least heard of it, which is more than you can say for a lot of things. I love him.

You should see Ghost World, it is very good. You also must read the Count of Monte Cristo. I’m sure I’ve already told you this but it’s just the best fucking book I’ve ever read, which is not wholly true but feels true. It’s exciting and it’s also smart, also there is supposed to be swashbuckling but I haven’t gotten to that part yet.

The bouncer at the bar we went to on my birthday called me Sweetie.

Yours,
The Recently Dethroned Birthday King.

Date: 6 Aug 2001
From: David Madden
Subject: [none]

In every published book I’ve ever seen, including the ones McSweeney’s publishes, I have always seen a line of numbers somewhere near the copyright on the back of the title page. It looks, often like this:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

But sometimes it looks like this:

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

And even sometimes—like, say, in the Chicago Manual of Style, where I thought I might find the answers to this numbering mystery, but failed to do so—it looks like this:

02 01 00 99 98 97 96 95 94 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

Since you guys are publishing books with a healthy regularity these days, I thought you might know what these lines of numbers mean and denote. Do you? Please help.

Thank you:
davemadden

Date: 6 Aug 2001
From: Delahoyde
Subject: RE: Delahaye Vs. Delahoyde

Gabriel,

First things first, I must wish you a happy birthday. Happy birthday. As they say: “Another year wiser, another year something something!” (I don’t remember all of that saying — just about half of it). It sounds as though you had an enjoyable time celebrating the anniversary of your birth and I’m glad you did. You deserve a day off, filled to the brim with revelry, song, drink, and the rolling of heavy things towards pins. Myself, I never seem to get around to celebrating my birthday. I’m not sure why this is, as I’m not one of those people who dread aging. My last birthday several birthdays for example, friends called me and invited me to bars and restaurants but I politely declined and stayed at home. Why do I do this? To win sympathy or to not bring attention to myself? I’ve no idea. It’s stuff for the psychiatrists, my friend. Stuff for the psychiatrists.
For some reason when you told me about Arthur Bradford, I was reminded that President Eisenhower’s full name was Arthur Bradford Eisenhower. Now why, of all the worthless information available to have stored in one’s head, would I know this? I’m glad you didn’t fight him.

As you were telling me about your last few days, I’ll tell you a little about mine. On Friday, we had a small party of sorts at my apartment, mostly as a “Welcome Back” event for my roommate who had just returned from Germany (he spends the summers there). There were a lot of friends there, laughing, drinking, smoking, and talking about everything from rap music to people who we know that are getting married and/or having children. It was a nice time, “but there weren’t enough women.” Several of the males in attendance made that comment more than once. I thought it was a healthy mix.

Saturday, nothing really, but there was one bit of dialogue between my roommate and I that stuck with me:

Jason (coming into my room): This is really cool. I’m watching that twenty year retrospective on MTV and they’re showing all of the old videos and commercials. It reminded me why I used to watch it and why I don’t watch it now. Me: But you’re watching it now. Jason: Yeah, but today it’s old.

On Sunday, my mother and I went to the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, the only really consistently interesting museum in town. The exhibits were nice and there were very few people there, making it that much more relaxing. The only thing that bothers me about this palace o’ art, is how they post their name: “SMoCA” This is, as it seems, a direct rip-off of “MoCA”, the trendy acronym for the famous Los Angeles museum. Also, the one in L.A. has a hip sort of name, sounding like mocha, the drink. SMoCA sounds like someone with a thick New York accent saying “smoker.” I suppose it’s the subtle things I’m bothered by really.

On Sunday night, my pal Waki and I went to a blues festival held in town. There, we saw a gentleman named Robert Jr. Lockwood, who is eighty-seven and a damn fine guitarist. He played an hour-long set and it was hinted that he might return. I hope to have that sort of energy when I reach that age. Unfortunately, I had eaten some bad barbeque and wanted to leave after his performance. I spent the rest of the night feeling very ill. I understand that the blues have to do with the subject of pain and suffering so I believe that their message must’ve reached me in the appropriate manner. I feel fine today, though I still feel as though someone has left me. Perhaps my woman.

Sincerely,
Steve

Date: 7 Aug 2001
From: Delahaye, Gabriel
Subject: RE: Delahaye Vs. Delahoyde

Steve,

I think it’s kind of natural to want to spend your birthday at home. In the end, though, at least within myself and my friends, I’ve noticed that this is just the ultimate form of self-absorption. It’s one thing to throw a huge party, but it’s equally grandiose to shun well-wishers and slink into bed. Often times, when I say that I don’t want presents, that I don’t want a cake, or that I don’t want streamers and party hats, noise makers and exotic booze, it is because none of these things are as gigantic of a tribute as I feel I deserve. What I’m really telling you is: present? How expensive? Cake? How delicious and exquisite? Streamers, party hats, and noisemakers? How colorful, how pointed, how loud? Booze hailing from what port? If this party isn’t going to be up to snuff it might as well never have happened.

Today is Tuesday, but it feels like Monday. Yesterday was Monday and it felt like Monday, too. Sunday felt like Sunday, but Saturday also felt like Sunday, and last Friday felt like Saturday. All of this is true.

Last night we watched the Jack Hill film, Switchblade Sisters. It was based quite strongly on Othello, which was originally a play. SS is about the toughest gang in town, The Daggers, and their girlfriends, The Dagger Debs. Eventually, the girls become all powerful and take over, naming themselves The Jezebels. The word switchblade is never used, but the word sister is, often. My favorite line in the movie happens when the leader of the Dagger Debs, Lace, tells her boyfriend, Dom-short for Dominick, who is the leader of the Daggers, that she is pregnant by him. He gets mad, as gang leaders often do in this type of situation, and he goes “you think I’m gonna slave in a factory for two dollars an hour so you can have a brat suck on your tit.” Something like that. Oh, it was good. I laughed hard at that one but my girlfriend didn’t think it was so funny. She’s just pissed off because when we played Life this weekend I totally won and had millions of dollars and she had to retire in some shack on Homeland Estates with three kids and no pension. In SS there was a fat girl named Donut. There was also a shoot-out in a roller-rink. It has been no small source of pain for me that the roller-rink industry has dried up, and the fact that gang-wars are the most likely source of this downfall, well, I don’t think you have a Kleenex absorbent enough for my tears.

I’ve decided to write a novel. I think you should write a novel, too. There’s all those good stories, about writers like Bukowski, who was bored, and drunk, on his couch, and said to himself “I’m bored, and drunk, what should I do? I know, I will write a novel.” And he did. There was a story I read this morning on the world wide web* about William Faulkner and how one morning he came down into his kitchen and grabbed a jug of whiskey and said “I’m going out to the barn to write a novel and I’m not coming back until it’s finished.” Or something like that. Come on, Steve, let’s write novels. We may not have barns, but whiskey is readily available. Just think, we won’t even have to deal with the detractions of Bukowski’s womanizing or the racism of Faulkner’s Mississippi milieu. I’ve already got a title for mine. I would tell you the title, but I don’t trust you. I think you might steal it, or use it somehow to your advantage and take all the wind out of my novel’s sails before it has even been written. This is a good idea. Come, Steve, let’s get on the novel train!!

Oh well.

• http://www.surgeryofmodernwarfare.com

Oh well.

Bye, Steve. I have to go work on my novel now, currently titled
Untitled
(shhh!).

Gabriel.

Date: 7 Aug 2001
From: Delahoyde
Subject: RE: Delahaye Vs. Delahoyde

Gabriel,

Your enthusiasm about writing a novel was exciting — is still exciting. I’m sitting here, at my desk, excited. The writing of a novel has always appealed to me. The invention of the idea, the stretching of it to fill dozens of pages, the weight of that many pages, and the ability to say, when people ask what you’re doing, “I’m working on a novel.” I’ve started novels before with a fairly decent story idea and characters capable of development, but I get twenty or so pages into them and begin to doubt myself. I re-read what I’ve written over and over again, finding flaws in almost every word, burrowing the idea deep into my mind that I should not be writing novels because I cannot write novels. With short stories or small bits of various things, I immediately love what I’ve written, even the typos and the confusing bits. Perhaps it is the length that frightens me, daunted by the size of a novel.

But today, yes, today (though maybe not tomorrow or the day after that), I’ve been encouraged to write something, anything, even if it is terrible and is mostly about talking mice that run a mouse carnival in Luxemburg. Sure, I don’t have any really developed ideas floating around in my brain, or a fancy antique typewriter, or any sort of talent to speak of, I’ll give it a go. If you’re for it and we’re both successful in our attempts, we could do introductions for each other’s books or smallish tag-lines on the back. But I must ask: is there a deadline we’re working on for our novels? I think that speed-novel-writing might encourage me to stick with it through the long weeks. You?

I enjoyed your haiku on Nintendo games. It returned me to my youth, remembering those long hours spent in front of the television making tiny, animated people fight other tiny, animated people. Remember the Power Pad? It was that device you plugged into the system and would run on, thus controlling the characters on the screen (usually only in track and field themed games). For a brief period, I was the most popular kid in my neighborhood because I owned one. This foray into hip-ness ended quickly as it was soon discovered that this expensive piece of hardware was awkward and non-responsive, thus: sucky.

In closing, we must revisit a previously mentioned topic about sending fake e-mails. Today, I received four e-mails from people who’d forwarded me previously forwarded jokes or pictures of some sort. As these items are never funny or clever in the slightest and extremely bothersome, I have decided to retaliate. I chose all of the cut and pasted the addresses of all the people who had forwarded these things onto a new e-mail. There, I doctored up the message to appear as one of these typical pieces (i.e. on the subject line, I wrote “Fwd: FW: FW: FW:”). Then, I attached something unusual and not a bit funny. In this case, the lengthy obituary of Emily Dickinson. I can only imagine these people reading through this long, though thoroughly beautiful piece, searching for the punch line in the end. When they find it isn’t, I’d assume they’ll be confused and possibly irritable because they can’t determine why this would be considered funny. I am making things right in the world through my small, humble actions.

Sincerely,
Steve

Date: 8 Aug 2001
From: Delahaye, Gabriel
Subject: RE: Delahaye Vs. Delahoyde

Steve,

I know that you of all people, considering geography and all, are the last person to complain to about this, but it’s just seriously so totally hot up here. Today’s high is 98 with a heat index (whatever the hell that means) of 105. My apartment is not air-conditioned and at night the temperature only drops to about a thousand degrees. Last night I woke up to go to the bathroom and get a drink of water and when I got back to bed I thought ‘oh, how delightfully cool it is here’, until I realized that it was my sweat, chilled in the light breeze of the window fan. God, I’m dying.

Otherwise: I don’t think it’s the length of a novel that scares you so much as working on something for an extended period of time. This is most certainly the wall I have run into whenever I think about novels. The sheer time it would take to mechanically type 150-400 pages, just plugging away, is astounding, which says nothing of the creative effort to think of what words to use. You start with a little something, and you run with it until you are tired, and then you look at this little thing and it is covered in sweat and you’ve squished a little bit in your hand. My novel started as a short story and now I’ve decided to make it a novel. People say Oh, can I read that short story you were talking about? To which I reply Sure, but it’s not a short story anymore, it’s an excerpt from my novel. Who’s to tell me different? It’s all a matter of self-classification, Steve, that’s how we’re going to get this done. The longer we tell ourselves that we are novelists, the closer it will come to being true. This, incidentally, does not work. We will have to write.

This is a short excerpt from my novel:

Me:Where’s the pole? Jill:What pole? Me:The fireman’s pole. Jill:What fireman’s pole? Me:I brought wine. Jill:Good. Me:I brought wine glasses. Jill:Good. Me:Do you want some? Jill: O.K. Me:I brought Canadian cigarettes. Jill:I quit smoking. Me:What do you mean you quit smoking? Jill:I mean I don’t smoke anymore, cigarettes, I quit. Me:When? Jill:I don’t know, I just quit. Me:What do you mean you don’t know? How could you not know? Jill:Why does it matter? I don’t want your stupid cigarettes. Me:Well, here. Jill:What the hell are you doing! If you give me those I will just want to smoke again. Me:Look, I quit smoking a year ago, if I fall off the wagon and start up again it will be trouble, and it will be your fault. No one even knows you quit yet, so it won’t look like an act of weakness on your part, whereas in my case it is different. I will look like an addict, and I don’t want to look like an addict. Besides, it will up my cost of living—which is already beyond my means—by like twenty dollars a week or something. Jill:ELSA! Elsa:WHAT? Jill:DO YOU WANT SOME, what kind of cigarettes are they? Me:Canadian, De Maurier. Jill:De what? Me:Just say Canadian. Jill:DO YOU WANT SOME CANADIAN CIGARETTES? THEY ARE DE MORE SOMETHING. Elsa:WHAT ABOUT CIGARETTES? Jill:CANADIAN. Me:She said What About, not What Kind. Jill:DO YOU WANT CANADIAN CIGARETTES? Elsa:HOLD ON. The apartment was small. Music was playing pretty loud on the living room stereo. Elsa stepped in and noticed me and said hello, and I said hello. “What were you saying?” “Do you want some cigarettes, some Canadian cigarettes, Gabriel brought some cigarettes.” “Oh, sure, o.k.” “There, give them to Elsa.” I gave Elsa the cigarettes. The wineglasses clinked in the bag. The Vietnamese woman didn’t wrap them in paper or anything and I was worried they’d break. “I brought wine.” “Good.” “Do you want some?” “O.K.”

You have just read an excerpt from my novel. You see, Steve, when you say it like that it actually sounds possible. I think we can do it. If we don’t do it we will drink too heavily and worry our parents. Let us at least spare them this.

Travis and I have been lamenting the invention of the e-card. The worst addition to birthdays in several years was the tremendous influx of shitty e-cards that I got. Even my mom sent me one (two, actually). e-cards are like a big fuck you to every recipient. There’s never anything interesting about an e-card, and you have to actually make an effort to see it, either by clicking on a goddamn hyperlink or, good god, cutting and pasting those long URLs. To make matters worse, as if the e-card were not insulting enough, you’re often confronted with some atrocious animated gif. And now, as the final blow, a lot of e-cards will alert the sender when the recipient has looked at the card, which means that they also know if you decided to forgo their stupid e-card and then they ask you Oh, didn’t you get my e-card? And you’re like, uh, which one, the one with the little jumping, barking dog animated gif, or the one with the teenaged girl on roller-skates animated gif? The one with muzak playing in the background, or the one with muzak playing in the foreground.

And, of course I remember the powerpad. I think there may have been a haiku about the powerpad that I later removed. The girlfriend I told you about, the one who had field parties and tipped cows, she had a powerpad. We all went over to her house and she made barbecued chicken on a George Foreman grill and we played Track and Field. She had all kinds of tricks for the powerpad, ways to win that didn’t really involve skill, and then she dumped me.

Best, Young Novelist!!
G.

Date: 8 Aug 2001
From: Delahoyde
Subject: RE: Delahaye Vs. Delahoyde

Gabriel,

The heat, yes, I’ve heard. While your temperatures (95 and 105) sound tiny and manageable to a native desert dweller such as myself, I realize that there is humidity to factor in. Humidity is much, much worse. And not being in possession of an air conditioner to boot. In August, where we’re at now, we usually run up around 110 degrees and forty percent humidity, but there are days, today for example, when it has rained in the early morning and we are stuck with hundred degree temperatures and seventy percent humidity. Though this is weather not fit for even dogs that bite children, it’s only an occasional thing, not like on the East Coast. I remember, having spent some summers in New York, the feeling one would get on a sunny, wet day. Immediately drenched, tired, irritable — it’s bad. There was one time in particular when a friend and I were dressed in black suits (I think we were going to see a matinee and wanted to look strangely fashionable). As we walked, the heat kept getting progressively worse. When finally in our seats, we had removed our jackets, our ties and our dress shirts, setting them on our laps while we panted and cursed the day. I feel for you.

Thanks to your pre-novel-writing-pep-talk, I found it surprisingly easy to write last night and this morning/afternoon. I just let the words flow off onto the page. I’m not sure if what’s been written is any good, but its been written and that’s the important part. I will give you a tiny sneak preview: It concerns a stubborn young man, the scare concerning the Y2K computer problem, working on motion pictures and people who lie about playing professional rugby. So far I have the introduction written. While I’m not too comfortable sharing that, I did discover something short I’d written and long since forgotten about that I now found interesting:

Tammy, Yesterday, while shopping for various kinds of green tortilla chips, I realized that I’d never gone sky-diving. That got me thinking of all the other things I’d yet to have done. I started to get worried that my life was passing me by. I sat down right there in the soda aisle and made a list of things I’d always wanted to do: - go skydiving - sit in the soda aisle of a grocery store - make a list I stood up, feeling much better. Thanks, Ed

I agree with your stance on e-cards. They are an impersonal embarrassment to our fast-paced society.

Along the lines of your Power Pad ex-girlfriend, I also have a sorrowful story about loves lost and its relation to things displayed on television. I was fifteen at the time, dating an older woman of sixteen. She’d questioned our relationship several times, wondering if the age difference was too great, but I’d put her mind at ease with my boyish charm (I had boyish charm at that age — no longer). I went with her to a dance at her school (that was another problem, not being at the same school), then to her house with her friends to watch TV and talk about things. Unfortunately, Mystery Science Theater 3000 was on and it was hysterical. I laughed myself senseless. No one else in the room was laughing at all, but were staring at me. Next we tried, “Top Secret”, the Val Kilmer spoof movie. Again, me laughing, no one else. I couldn’t control it, it didn’t even seem voluntary. She walked me to the door, gave me a quick kiss, said, “It’s not going to work,” then shut the door quickly, thus insinuating that we had broken up. Two weeks later, we got back together. A week after that, she threw a soccer ball at my head and ended the relationship again. I’ve heard she now lives in Manhattan. Look out.

Sincerely,
Steve

Date: 9 Aug 2001
From: Delahaye, Gabriel
Subject: RE: Delahaye Vs. Delahoyde

Steve,

People are dying in the streets. This is true, although not necessarily as exciting as it sounds. Last night it was unbearably hot and I slept naked. Maybe that’s too forward, maybe we are not ready for that, but I was not ready to die. Everything was hot to the touch, just by merely being in the room, cupboards, sofas, books, they were all burning up. I made the gazpacho for the first time ever, because you can eat it cold, but we got too hungry and ate it before it had time to chill, but it was very good and I will make the gazpacho again. When you go down into the subway station you think, honestly, that they are trying to torture you. I don’t use deodorant because it’s got the aluminum in it that goes to your brain and gives you the Alzheimer’s so everyone around me is suffering.

My grandparents went skydiving. That’s great, they’re old. All old people should skydive.

Okay, I’ve got a headache and so I’m going to leave you with this for today. It’s not much. I’m glad you are working on your novel. Mine has stalled out a little, as the main character is now in New York, Brooklyn no less, and that’s the last place I wanted him to have to go. I’m doing everything in my power, though, young Steve, to get him the hell out of there. Let’s hope he makes it out before the novel ends, or else I’ll be in big big trouble.

Best,
G.

Date: 10 Aug 2001
From: Delahoyde
Subject: RE: Delahaye Vs. Delahoyde

Oh Steve!

Did I tell you yesterday that I had a headache. A real killer, the kind you used to see in the commercials where people were holding their heads as they stumbled down the street looking for a hospital. I don’t usually get them, so it’s even harder for me to manage…and it’s still here! What a motherfucker. It’s burning me up. I’ve tried everything: medicines, drinking more water, drinking caffeine, sleeping, drinking beer. Actually, drinking beer cleared it up for awhile, but then it came back this morning. I told my girlfriend she was drunk and she said “no I’m not, I’m sober as a judge,” and I said “yeah, a judge who’s been drinking since four this afternoon.”

The head of my department is out, so I just went into her office and laid on her couch for a minute. If I had an office I’d totally nap during lunch. I feel like these resources are squandered by the people lucky enough to obtain them. Sometimes I want to sleep in the hot-caff, but I can feel people in pressed shirts looking at me and trying to think whom they can report this insubordination to, so I stay awake. It is very hard.

My cousin is betrothed! This weekend I am going to a wedding in Michigan, there will probably be a chicken dish, or a fish dish. Cake! I’ll dance with my grandma, there will most likely be klezmer music, which is very danceable in an old-country kind of way. You would be surprised. My grandma, when she wants to compliment me, instead of saying ‘you are very handsome’ she says ‘if I were a few years younger I’d make a pass at you’, which is kind of gross, because, I mean, she’s my grandma, and also I mean a few years younger? A FEW? Jesus. Blech. On the fourth of July my ma and grandma got in an argument. My ma posited that she had heard my grandma use the word fuck, and my grandma claimed that she had never used that word so my ma could never have heard it from her. This went on for quite some time, and there was laughing. The other night I dreamed that my grandma said ‘motherfucker’ and I laughed and pointed at her and said See, you do say it! and she got embarrassed and locked herself in her car.

Meanwhile, I have printed out the first few pages of my novel to make sure that I am on track, and to do a little editing. Let us say chapters, I have printed out chapters, from my forthcoming novel. I’m starting to think novella, though, because it sounds fancier somehow and is also shorter. A nice little novella, which I will publish at Kinko’s. Pre-order yours today!

Okay, Steve. Watch Out For Snakes!
G.

Date: 10 Aug 2001
From: Paul Collins
Subject:

McSweeney’s Readers,

The Department of Justice has taken it upon itself to determine just exactly who is, and who is not, a real writer. Considering that most New York editors appear incapable of this task, the notion of the DoJ attempting it would be laughable if it weren’t so damn dangerous.

For two weeks now, writer Vanessa Leggett has been imprisoned in a Houston jail [link: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12390-2001Jul31.html] on a contempt of court charge. Leggett is researching a 1997 Houston murder for a book, and she has refused to turn over her notes and tapes to a federal grand jury.

This is the first such contempt charge by a federal court since 1991 – since, you’ll notice, the previous Bush administration. The constitutional protection that journalists have in such cases has not been extended to Vanessa Leggett because, apparently, the Department of Justice does not consider her a legitimate journalist. That is, she is an as-yet unpublished freelancer. But Leggett has been working on the case for four years, all the while identifying herself as a writer with plans to write a book, and she has spoken with local publications about running this work.

The corrosive legal precedent this case will set is obvious. How exactly do you define a journalist, if not by intent and self-identification? If an unpublished freelancer submitting work to their local papers and to publishers is not a protected journalist, then are hopeful new contributors to national magazines also not real and constitutionally protected writers? Is someone who self-publishes their own magazine or web site not a real writer? Or someone who writes for a free community paper? How about for a high school newspaper? Or for, say, an irregularly scheduled literary journal with unpaid contributors?

Once they can pick off writers from the bottom rungs of the ladder, they will start aiming higher.

I urge you, and in particular my fellow freelance writers, to vent your displeasure at the man responsible for this outrage: Greg Serres, the United States Attorney for the Southern Texas district. His office can be reached at (713) 567-9000 (voice), (713) 718-3300 (fax), or at P.O. Box 61129, Houston TX 77208-1129.

Thank you.
PAUL COLLINS