TO: iPHONE CUSTOMER SERVICE, PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT, APPLICATION SERVICES...REALLY ANYBODY AT iPHONE OR AFFILIATE WHOSE CHECKS ARE SIGNED BY STEVE JOBS. THIS LETTER REALLY NEEDS TO GET TO HIM.
FROM: A. PETTICOAT
The new iPhones can do SO much awesome shit. So that makes me think...what can they not do yet?
Take revenge on my enemies is what!
I'm talking about fucking them up!
I want a downloadable app that will turn all the stoplights green as my enemy nears the intersection.
I want an easily affordable app where I can type in what my enemy is having for dinner as we meet at a neutral site for a truce and it will then tell me which poison is best to blend into the food. Arsenic is no good with Italian, everybody knows that, but what other advice goes beyond that? I DO NOT have time to google it, my enemy only takes like thirty seconds to pee. If he's a he. If it's a girl, maybe I just google it then.
How about involving throwing stars in this app? Throwing stars is something that seems like it'd be easy for an iPhone to do.
I want a sleek, customizable app that will frame my enemy for a murder. This revenge scenario will likely require the phone itself to also be capable of murder, in case the owner is not.
The app should also have the ability to falsify documents, forms of identification, and possibly launder money.
Steve, when this finds you, let me know what you think of my ideas. Just to keep the playing field level--or perhaps with just a slight edge in your favor--I also sent this idea to Bill Gates. But legend has it he takes FOREVER to check his email. Don't take it personal...I'm ready to get paid, bitches!
Today we have a letter whose sights are zeroed-in on perennial soft target, Chevy Chase. With time-traveling abilities.
TO: CHEVY CHASE OF PRESENT DAY
FROM: CHEVY CHASE CIRCA 1987
Present-day Chevy,
Two words: Bill Murray. It didn't have to be like this. In fact, you should be the one writing this letter to me, like Marty McFuckin McFly, warning me cleverly about whereI will initially head down the wrong track. Where's the clairvoyance, you fatass hamhog unfunny piece of shit? I guarantee you the future Bill Murray wrote this letter. But you, I bet you're too busy waving around that little vienna sausage dick of yours, aren't you? I don't have to guess what you were up to for the last two decades. I know what kind of stuff I'm into, and it sickens me to look in the mirror.
Oh, Chevy. If only they could all see inside our disgusting black heart.
This letter, if you're interested, is just to inform you that I made an appointment with an assassin in a Colombian cartel to break into my house while I sleep and chop my fuckin dick off with a machete. This is the only way I know of to stop you from the diabolical, mediocre path you have set before me.
Feel free to unzip your pants and observe that you have no penis--maybe no balls either, my Spanish is quite poor. That withered little abomination of a reproductive organ is history. He is set to perform this merciful act (or, at your place on the timeline, performed this merciful act) in 2005. Your (and my) failure is essentially in the books by then, from what I can tell.
This doesn't have to happen. I can cancel the order anytime. You think I want to ransom my own dick and possibly balls, Chevy? You of all people know how hard this is for me.
If you want your precious dick and balls back, YOU WILL find a way to keep me from ruining my career and YOU WILL work out a scheme to get that letter to me before it's too late. I will not suck mightily for the second half of my life. I refuse to gaze back at Clark W Griswold and a fuckin golf movie character as the apex of my career.
Set up a trusted courier (do you ever trust anyone in your misty, drug-fueled life?) to deliver the letter to my mansion once I'm exceptionally rich and losing basic awareness of reality. Ziplock it and slip it into the dampest vagina you can find in my favorite Tokyo whorehouse and tell her to birth it to me after we have an established customer/client relationship. I don't care how you get it to me, but get it to me. The sooner the better, obviously.
Today's letter was almost going to be TO THE HIPSTER MUSTACHE, WHOSE INTENDED IRONY IS BECOMING IRONIC ITSELF, but chinstraps are more fun, I think.
TO: THE WEARERS OF THE PENCIL-THIN CHINSTRAP BEARD
FROM: ALEJANDRO "I DO NOT UNDERSTAND HOW YOU KEEP THAT CHINSTRAP BEARD SO AMAZINGLY THIN" PETTICOAT
Yo, the all the womens is flockin to your junk based on your choice of facial hair design!
Every single one of you, down to the very last dude, looks like a watered-down version of that guy from Color Me Badd.
WHICH IS FUCKIN SWEET, BY THE WAY! It is no coincidence that Color Me Badd was easily one of the top five greatest gifts ever bestowed unto the female gender. Hands down. HANDS DOWN!
That being said, I'd like for you to consider this an ode, though without any of the formal constraints of verse. The pencil-thin chinstrap beard is the ultimate weapon for the male against female selection. This is known. Darwin wrote about this. No woman within the normal ages of sexual reproduction can resist it. Boys learn this as early as middle school. If you have an ultra-thin line of facial hair meticulously groomed along the contours of your jawline, a female will copulate with you under almost any circumstances. If all men had the discipline and debonair style of the thinly-chinstrapped man, the world would overpopulate until it toppled out of orbit from the weight of all the newborn babies.
The chinstrap can be gangster, indicating toughness and a rugged nonchalance. If I'm wearing it I'm saying, Hey, I'm reckless. I'm potentially kinda gangster-ish. If you need me to show up on the scene in a tilted hat, I can be there.
But also--also!!--the pencil-thin chinstrap can denote a refined level of sophistication. It can serve as a dapper accessory to a tie and a collared shirt. It can say, if you need me to show up for my court date in reading glasses as if I wear them every day, I can. And will.
Some people want to hate on the pencil-thin chinstrap and all of you fine fellows who sport it. Penguins included. They want to say that you are all posers. For the record, I totally disagree, and I hope you that you never, ever shave that fine line of facial hair circumnavigating your chin. I realize that, by endorsing you, I am greatly reducing my chances to ever get any of that sweet poon that flocks to your strap, but I don't want you to worry about me. You just keep being you. Nothing says sexy and debonair like that well-kempt shit you've decided to grow on your face. This is bigger than any of us. This goes back to brave men like that guy from Color Me Badd, like Vanilla Ice. Such is the company you keep, my friends.
**Upon closer study, this isn't exactly a pencil-thin chinstrap on my man Vanilla here. Actually, it's just a shadow. But the fact is that the good ones, the astoundingly razor-thin chinstraps, are too elusive for even the internet to record in history. They are the snow leopards of beardly design. And you KNOW that V.I. has at least once (and probably multiple times) in his life been among the tribe of thinly-chinstrapped men. Word to ya motha! Petticoat
They finally did the math on whose armies killed the most--I think you won, holmes!
The more I read about you, the more I'm like, oh, snap, son! Your people were definitely more evil than mine. No contest. This is not unadulterated flattery, as all who know me know I have a tendency for. I was trying to read this Wikipedia entry on Japanese War Crimes...couldn't even get through it, bro! No shit. Turned my stomach. Once I get to the shit about Unit 731, I'm done. I actually become pretty appalled, between me and you. And I'm freakin' Hitler! I just hate the idea of flesh. Can't touch it. But you motherfuckers, your soldiers, they ate their enemies! Well, civilians too. Tied dudes up to tent poles and sliced flesh from their bones and left them to die. Ooh, you nasty!
And you had the comfort women, and your soldiers held contests to see who could be the first to kill one hundred people with a sword, and a ton of other super-ill shit. I mean, why is it that you don't get the recognition you so truly deserve? I can't help but think your people are kind of bummed because you don't get credit for being the most brutal, terrible, murderous fighting army of the modern era. There's a lot of fear and respect coming with that reputation. Instead of showing love to your people's list of great atrocities, everybody fixates on me, a vegetarian who loves to paint.
For me, I basically think of us as the reverse of the Steve McQeen/Clint Eastwood dialectic. Would you have guessed those cats were the same age? But McQueen died relatively young, and since they filled roughly the same niche, the world moved on and Eastwood became the bigger figure in the long run. I am definitely the Steve McQueen of genocide. So, how you did NOT become the Clint Eastwood of genocide and barbaric atrocities in general, Hirohito, I'll never understand.
Obviously, though, I was killing Europeans. That helps. But also, something you should have talked to me about was brand recognition. You see that swastika, you know atrocity is waiting in the next room. Indiana Jones is not freaking saving you, know what I mean? The symbol alone cranks up the heartbeat of the world. Plus, the camera loves me. You were going for that rarely-seen-villain-mastermind vibe, which is cool, but I was such a huge slut for the camera. No denying it--and it paid off, in my opinion.
And personally, I'm one of those people who thinks that history is more obsessed with me because the Jews own all the media. I know it sounds a bit racist, but I'll say it anyway. I mean, shit, I'm Hitler.
2nd post! Today, for reasons I can't necessarily explain or don't want to investigate for fear of shattering my fragile psyche, I bring to your soft, dark eyes a pair of terrible letters addressed to children/fetuses.
AND--don't miss Ebert's review of Transformers 2. It's charming.
TO: ALL BASTARDS FROM: ALEJANDRO
Dear Bastards, What's it like? Not knowing your parents?I really want to know, only without having to go through it in any way whatsoever.
p.s. The use of colons often denotes a sequel, and ALWAYS summarizes the plot in but a phrase. Useful info for you if you had been born and developed an interest in film while growing up.
Let’s see if this terrible idea floats. OK, so everybody knows that in the 21st century, humans grow more averse to words every day. But unfortunately, the internet is FULL of them. I basically just want to add to the pile. To the great dismay of the masses, this website will be about posting letters (composed of words) which people have written.
This is/hopefully will be a blog of reader-submitted content.We’re looking for terrible letters of all sorts.What do we mean when we say terrible?Find a dictionary. Or, better yet, interpret it your own way.Terrible is whatever.What do we mean when we say letters?Well, we intend for it to be interpreted in the greater literary sense, in the tradition of belle-lettres, if you will; of or pertaining to literature or literary culture; also, writings tinged with the regality and cultural acumen of an episode of South Park or a cleverly executed piece of public restroom graffiti.
What do we mean when we say we? It’s just me and Alejandro over here. We need some chicks, man.
Is this blog a shameless rip off of McSweeney’s Open Letters? Yeah, pretty much. Kinda. We prefer the term variant. But we aim to be just a tiny little corner of the internet which is a continuation in the tradition of great satirists, like Jonathan Swift and Mark Twain, true Impresarios of the Terrible Letter. These were cynical, ruthless men who wrote about the general wretchedness of humanity—but in a way that makes you laugh your ass off. And how can there EVER be enough of that going on?
Honestly, if it’s funny, We’ll publish it.
I will start publishing some terrible letters I’ve diddled in my free time. Then I will ask some of my more ruthless friends to pen their own terrible letters if they so wish (an irresistible temptation), and whatever comes up will get tossed to the masses. If you would like to publish a terrible letter, send it in an email here: terribleletters@gmail.com
Terrible letters can be real or fake, addressed to or from anyone. Letters, emails, postcards, notes, whatever.
Have you secretly wished to write a terrible letter?You’ve been waiting for an excuse, haven’t you?I’ll be honest:it feels nice.Send your letter here so all of us can enjoy.We do not require real names; in fact, we prefer pseudonyms.
Have you ever been dumped via email? I'd love to see the proof.Have you dumped someone who then wrote to tell you what a shit you are, lobbing a barrage of terrible insults to your inbox? I imagine that would be one terrible letter! That counts! Has an enemy actually taken the time to pen some form of correspondence with you? Mine are not that thoughtful...but I might enjoy writing a letter to a couple of them. In fact...keep an eye out for something similar arriving soon on this very blog. The format for these are exceptionally open-ended.
This project is a work in progress. It was only an idea a couple days ago. Look how far we've come, Alejandro! I’ve never had a blog before, and I only vaguely know what I’m doing at any given time.
And finally, here is our inaugural Terrible Letter. It might not be particularly terrible, but it’s the first one I wrote when I thought of the blog.
TO: OUR BELOVED FAMILY DOG, TILLY, WHO MADE ME BAWL LIKE A CHILD AS I WATCHED THE VET PUT HER TO SLEEP AFTER TWELVE LONG YEARS OF BEAUTIFUL, LOYAL, FULFILLING LIFE
FROM: ALEJANDRO PETTICOAT
Dear Sweet Tilly,
I will always say of you that you can never be replaced, but actually, in my heart, you totally can. You really, totally can. I can go to the pound and find a dog that looks as cute as you and sits like you and loves being rubbed on her belly, and you will have been completely replaced. And on the inside I'll be like, There. Sadness about dead dog: all gone.
I will only think of you when I notice you in old pictures, and any sentimentality that creeps beyond my solar plexus will be quickly shut down by the realization that I didn’t actually know you—you were just a dog, and I can go pet the dog that’s alive and forget you once again until your memory is revived by accident years later and summarily lost in the following moment. RIP.
