Tag Archives: funny letter

Spotlight: A Response To Allan Keyes

4 Aug

August 4, 2012

“No Mr. Keyes, You Are Not Funny”

Dear Sirs-

It has come to my attention that you have been getting quite the mileage out of an unfortunate photo that was taken of me and posted on the internet without my knowledge or consent.

You see Mr. Keyes, I am indeed the gentleman that you and your cohort “Mr. Blog” (such a pathetic nom de plume) have repeatedly and cruelly labeled as “fat guy eating cheeseburger.”  For the record – not that you and your publisher care – my real name is Norman Snackmunch, and I do not appreciate having that out of-context photo being constantly used to deride and degrade me.

Sir, in my day I have played to great praise in many of Shakespeare’s plays.  Enclosed is a photo of me in my acclaimed role of Falstaff, a role that I played on the stage of the Old Vic itself!  Would that you print that instead of the humiliating picture snapped of me in my weakest moment!  I have several doctorates, am an ordained minister, and have been the recipient of the Elks Lodge Humanitarian of the Year award multiple times. But to you and your few uninformed readers, I am merely an overweight gentleman stuffing myself that is appropriate to be made sport of. How dare you!

I wish to educate you Mr. Keyes, as to just how that picture came to be.  I was naturally disheveled at the time, as I had just spent the previous three and a half days in a creative frenzy finishing my 15th sonata (seven of my previous 14 had been performed on stage, accompanied by no less a personage than Pavarotti himself!) As is my custom, when I create, I am so single-minded that I forego eating and sleeping.  So naturally, when I finished the final glissando, I realized how ravenously hungry I was. My problem was compounded because my wife Beatrix, deeply involved in a project of her own (she edits the New England Journal of Medicine) had neglected the shopping.

I ventured from my townhouse to find sustenance, but at that hour of the night, the only establishment open was the local Fuddruckers. And unfortunately, a hamburger eating contest was about to start. I was walking to the counter, fully intending to make my order and leave, when the emcee of the event noticed my advanced poundage, and cruelly goaded me into participating.

Mr. Keyes, it was not my intent to compete. But the emcee called me out in some of the vilest manners! One particular barb that rankled was his assessment of me as being “all hat, no cattle” when I repeatedly refused to join in– well dammit, I have my pride sir!  I entered, resolved to teach that blaggard a lesson, when at that fateful and unfortunate moment, some person unknown to me snapped that now infamous photo of me and posted it on Google.  Needless to say, the fact that I triumphed in the contest has turned into quite the pyric victory for me, even despite the stylish championship belt that was my prize.

The aftermath has been both personally and professionally awful for me. When Beatrix travels to conferences, jokers plaster her room with pictures of me. In one of them someone photoshopped  a porkpie hat onto my head! As if I would ever wear such a silly article of clothing! Had I ever donned one, even in jest, my haberdasher Mr. Detwiler would discontinue accepting my trade. Mr. Keyes sir, you may meddle with me if you so choose, but mark my words sir, you dare not interfere with my continued access to Mr. Detweiler’s homburgs!

Everywhere I go, the public taunts me, thanks to you. Even on campus, on my way to lecture my advanced calculus students, people yell things at me such as “Hey fat guy, way to go!” and “Hey fat guy, how did that burger taste?”  And most often of all “Hey, fat guy! That Allen Keyes sure is funny!”

No Mr. Keyes, you are not funny.  You are most definitely unfunny (Beatrix concurs, though for some unfathomable reason she did enjoy something called “Hollywood Russell” that she saw on this web site).  It is my fervent hope that now I have enlightened you as to your error, that you and your supervisor “Mr. Blog” refrain from using that photograph in the future.

Thank you for your time.

Signed,

 Norman Snackmunch, Ph.D. 

PS- I find the grammar and spelling content of your weblog – your entries in particular – to be appalling. The only thing worse than your grammar is the quality of your Photoshop work.

 

****

 

By way of apology, Mr. BTR presents:  Fat Guy Eating Hamburger Wearing Homburger:

 

In case you were wondering, this has been

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Antique’s Road Show, Ring-A-Ding Ding

1 Mar

March 1, 2010

Watch Antique’s Road Show? I do. It is the only PBS show worth watching (unless you count Russian ballet. Something about those tights…) Anyway, they show some amazing finds, like the woman who paid $60 for a $50,000 Norman Rockwell painting, or the guy who bought jade from the Ming dynasty (or whatever) at a garage sale.

What they don’t show you are the real duds. Here is what didn’t make the air:

  • Can of corn with dent that looks like Eisenhower.
  • Letter written to “World War Two” by Uncle Jed, never delivered.
  • Genuine Japanese samurai sword (made in Toledo Ohio, 1978)
  • Autographed picture of Ron Palillo
  • Shroud of Turin
  • Spam

There was a real doozy this week. You may have seen it, as this one was all over the interwebs and I, being a lazy blogger, decided to write it up too.

Here it is, the ACTUAL FRANK SINATRA LETTER TO MIKE ROYKO:

What do I take from this? That Frank Sinatra was a very gentle man, by his own admission not tough, and people liked to do him favors. Why? Oh, I don’t know, um, probably because he was Mafia up to his eyeballs and had goons to beat people up. (Sure I can write that. How can you slander a dead man? And better yet, dead men don’t sue.) I’m sure the Chicago PD just happened to all be on duty in his suite that night by coincidence.

He sure did write a good letter, though.

Here’s a favorite letter of mine, to the Warner Brothers, from the Groucho Marx , re: A Night in Casablanca:

Dear Warner Brothers,

Apparently there is more than one way of conquering a city and holding it as your own. For example, up to the time that we contemplated making this picture, I had no idea that the city of Casablanca belonged exclusively to Warner Brothers. However, it was only a few days after our announcement appeared that we received your long, ominous legal document warning us not to use the name Casablanca.

It seems that in 1471, Ferdinand Balboa Warner, your great-great-grandfather, while looking for a shortcut to the city of Burbank, had stumbled on the shores of Africa and, raising his alpenstock (which he later turned in for a hundred shares of common), named it Casablanca.

I just don’t understand your attitude. Even if you plan on releasing your picture, I am sure that the average movie fan could learn in time to distinguish between Ingrid Bergman and Harpo. I don’t know whether I could, but I certainly would like to try.

You claim that you own Casablanca and that no one else can use that name without permission. What about “Warner Brothers”? Do you own that too? You probably have the right to use the name Warner, but what about the name Brothers? Professionally, we were brothers long before you were. We were touring the sticks as the Marx Brothers when Vitaphone was still a gleam in the inventor’s eye, and even before there had been other brothers—the Smith Brothers; the Brothers Karamazov; Dan Brothers, an outfielder with Detroit; and “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” (This was originally “Brothers, Can You Spare a Dime?” but this was spreading a dime pretty thin, so they threw out one brother, gave all the money to the other one, and whittled it down to “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?”)

Now Jack, how about you? Do you maintain that yours is an original name? Well it’s not. It was used long before you were born. Offhand, I can think of two Jacks—Jack of “Jack and the Beanstalk,” and Jack the Ripper, who cut quite a figure in his day.

As for you, Harry, you probably sign your checks sure in the belief that you are the first Harry of all time and that all other Harrys are impostors. I can think of two Harrys that preceded you. There was Lighthouse Harry of Revolutionary fame and a Harry Appelbaum who lived on the corner of 93rd Street and Lexington Avenue. Unfortunately, Appelbaum wasn’t too well-known. The last I heard of him, he was selling neckties at Weber and Heilbroner.

Now about the Burbank studio. I believe this is what you brothers call your place. Old man Burbank is gone. Perhaps you remember him. He was a great man in a garden. His wife often said Luther had ten green thumbs. What a witty woman she must have been! Burbank was the wizard who crossed all those fruits and vegetables until he had the poor plants in such confused and jittery condition that they could never decide whether to enter the dining room on the meat platter or the dessert dish.

This is pure conjecture, of course, but who knows—perhaps Burbank’s survivors aren’t too happy with the fact that a plant that grinds out pictures on a quota settled in their town, appropriated Burbank’s name and uses it as a front for their films. It is even possible that the Burbank family is prouder of the potato produced by the old man than they are of the fact that your studio emerged “Casablanca” or even “Gold Diggers of 1931.”

This all seems to add up to a pretty bitter tirade, but I assure you it’s not meant to. I love Warners. Some of my best friends are Warner Brothers. It is even possible that I am doing you an injustice and that you, yourselves, know nothing about this dog-in-the-Wanger attitude. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to discover that the heads of your legal department are unaware of this absurd dispute, for I am acquainted with many of them and they are fine fellows with curly black hair, double-breasted suits and a love of their fellow man that out-Saroyans Saroyan.

I have a hunch that his attempt to prevent us from using the title is the brainchild of some ferret-faced shyster, serving a brief apprenticeship in your legal department. I know the type well—hot out of law school, hungry for success, and too ambitious to follow the natural laws of promotion. This bar sinister probably needled your attorneys, most of whom are fine fellows with curly black hair, double-breasted suits, etc., into attempting to enjoin us. Well, he won’t get away with it! We’ll fight him to the highest court! No pasty-faced legal adventurer is going to cause bad blood between the Warners and the Marxes. We are all brothers under the skin, and we’ll remain friends till the last reel of “A Night in Casablanca” goes tumbling over the spool.

Sincerely,
Groucho Marx

Clearly, letter-writing is a lost art.

And so is blogging, judging from the fact that I actually wrote very little this week.
(This was a good week.)

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