Best Of: August 2007

Jim originally posted this back in August of 07, regarding Comedy Central's usage of "comedian" Carlos Mencia to be the flagship for their network since Dave Chappelle went all ...Mariah Carey-crazy and bolted for fucking.... Africa.

"Africa-Africa?"

"...Africa-Africa."

Anyway, enjoy. -ed.

"An Open Letter to Comedy Central: re: Carlos Mencia"

Dear Comedy Central/Viacom,

"The Mind of Mencia" has been airing on your network for almost two full years, and since has spawned something like four or five seasons since its inception. I'm writing you today to ask you to please cease and desist with this tripe.

I understand how it happened: Chappelle went Mariah Carey-Crazy, jumped the first jet to Africa and left you suits holding the bag in regards to a culturally relevant, hilarious 22 minute television programme starring an influential minority. You saw that you needed to plug the leak in the dyke as fast as possible, so you removed your thumb from your ass and jammed it as hard as you could into the widening gap.

No one blames you.

So you thought to yourselves that you'd find another "controversial" minority comedian who probably had some sketch comedy ideas kicking around, and Carlos Mencia seemed to fit the bill at that time. And again, no one blames your decision on this; Mr. Mencia at that time was relatively still underground but a fast rising star. He was "The Punisher of Comedy" and you guys wanted to bet it all, thinking you should snag him up before ABC gives him a sitcom ala George Lopez.

So you brought in Mr. Mencia and said "look Carlos, we love what you do, and we want to bring you to a wider audience. We want 'Carlos Mencia' to be a household name." And I'm sure he was on board for this. You gave him some creative licensing control, let him do his own writing, developing, etc. But what you didn't count on was that Carlos Mencia is a one-trick pony at best.

I've watched a number of episodes of "Mind of Mencia" and I find the title of the programme to be both ironic and telling. "Mind of Mencia" is twenty-two minutes of mindless jabbering and soap-boxing. The diminutive host dresses as if he shops at Baby Gap, with his "youthfully hip" t shirts and hoodies. It seems that he takes great pains to get his jokes across to the masses, and I'm sure he's under some oversight from Standards and Practices to keep things somewhat tasteful, even though the show is rated TVMA. But we know the big black block of a rating that pops up at the beginning of the show is a bait and switch tactic. There's nothing very adult about his humour at all.

Let me break down how I view the show in its entirety: There might be a half-hearted sketch at the show's opening depicting something overtly racist. Maybe Mr. Mencia has donned "white-face" make up and is acting like some pompous politician, or maybe he's donned "black-face" make up and is acting like some overzealous rapper. Either way he hops around his sketch like a wounded Ashlee Simpson at a live recording of Saturday Night Live.

Next there will be the typical splash graphic opening that I suppose is "edgy" and "urban" for the RedBull swilling kids who are just getting home from their jobs at Domino's Pizza or who are too stoned to change the channel after watching the same South Park you've been airing since May. Then Mr. Mencia will make his first appearance.

So he comes out holding a microphone, even though he's wearing a lapel mic. Mr. Mencia will then go on roughly a four minute mini-monologue about something about living in LA, or being a "beaner" or whatever happens to be the topic of the day. He tries very hard during this part of his show to really reach out to the television audience to get his socially charged point across. But again, he's falling short. He laces what could easily be a thoughtful speech with "duh-duh-duuhs" and mindless yelling. And then Mr. Mencia will shepard a D List level comedian who might really need the exposure on a nationally televised basic cable tv show, out on to his stage and let them rant, while he forces himself to laugh at weak attempts at humor. The whole thing is staged and very fake. For a viewer to convince themselves otherwise of the fact would be doing a disservice.

Then there's a commercial break, and when the show comes back, we the viewer are typically treated to a "man on the street" type waste of seven minutes, where Mr. Mencia and what I presume to be a small film crew, scour the streets of LA talking to tourists. The subject matter is usually something race driven, because the bulk of Mr. Mencia's schtick is racially motivated.

For instance, Mr. Mencia will ask a white person to immitate a black person, or have a black person immitate a jewish person, or have a hispanic act like their really mad at their boyfriend and hit him over the head with a chanchla... or sandle in English. He may or may not incorporate the use of a dwarf or his mentally handicapped brother Joseph in this portion of the show.

We go to break, and come back.

The last vignette is usually an in-studio sketch with a remarkably elaborate setting. I do have to give the set designers they're due in that regards. I wish I had more nice things to say about the show other than that, but I will give credit where credit is due.

On the subject of in-studio, how do you sell tickets or ... fill the seats of this set? I find it very hard to imagine people lining up to get into this show, but then again, the collective intelligence of Americans is somewhere between Forest Gump and Peter Griffen.

Anyway, so this last sketch will exhibit a number of horrible actors parading on to the set playing the role of despondant teenagers who are in need, apparently, of an attitude adjustment from Mr. Mencia. Mr. Mencia will usually take the role of some sort of authoritarian and the template is always the same: You'll have a depressed white "emo kid" who Mr. Mencia will tell "you're white, you have nothing to be depressed about!" a gay asian "you're gay, but it's ok, you like to do nails!" a butch lesbian "you should go try out for the Olympics... the Male Olympics!" a dumb blond "thank god you've got titties!" And finally a stereotypical black "gangsta" who Mr. Mencia will tell "you're homeboys won't always get your back when you go to jail, but he will!" and cue an obviously homosexual character who will come out and chase the character around the set and that's a wrap.

It's all very analgesic, and yawn inducing.

Again, suits, I appriciate the bind you were all in when you lost the greatest star to Comedy Central since Jon Stewart. But I urge you, on behalf of lovers of intellectual and thought-provoking comedy, please cancel "Mind of Mencia." I'm sure you could fill the empty time slot with another episode of South Park or Scrubs, or MadTv, or Drawn Together. All these shows are genius examples of greatly inspired writing and production.

Or, ... or you could stay the course and keep contributing to the "dumbing down" of America. ...But do you really want to be responsible for another Republican president? ...Think about it.

Thanks for your time,
J.

PS: And while we're at it. Let's hit the brakes on anything "Blue Collar" or with Larry The Cable Guy involved in it.

An Open Letter To My Girlfriend's Pre-Menstral Cramps:

Hey Cramps,

It's about that time of the month again; where you guys show up, kinda uninvited, but expected, as usual, and make me and my girlfriend's lives a living hell for about a week. Not unsimilar to the in-laws just showing up.

Hey, I for one, love it when you guys come around. It tells me something, it's good to see you, and honestly, it doesn't bother me all that much, not as much as say, The Lady. But then again, she's the one who has to put up with you for a week, while I luckily get to work all week here at the station. She gets to be the mascot for the couple, the face on the packaging, whereas I get to hunker down and wait out the storm far, far away.

But I was wondering if you could do me a favor? While your visiting for the next week or so, could you at least keep it down a little? The Lady has hard enough time getting to sleep at night, so the whole "bloaty, fat and ugly" feeling your giving her, isn't helping that situation much. Also, she won't complain directly to you guys for making her feel like a swollen wallrus, but she'll complain to me, ad nauseum, for the next couple of days - she'll gorge on chocolate and lay dispondently in bed resting her mac book on her uterus as a heating pad.

I don't mean to make light of your stay with us, and like I said, I'm all for you guys being here, especially since we tend to engage in condomless sex all the time, but is there anything you can do to not be such a hard-on to The Lady? Like, ease up a little bit?

When you get down to it, I just don't want to end up like Ritchie in the second season of The Sopranos, and be pumped full of holes by my girlfriend and then chopped up in a butcher shop by a junkie and a zip, never to be heard from again.

Also, not being able to bump uglies for a week is kinda a bummer.

Thanks, and see you next month (hopefully.),
Jim.

Best Of: May 2006

This was my very first "unmailed letters" article (there'd go on to be about five installments, each getting angrier I think...) so I thought it'd be nice to show you guys what was pissing me off roughly two years ago.

Hope you enjoy!

Often times people say that if you have a problem with something, you should write a letter, but not mail it. It helps get all the anger out. Well, for the first time ever, exclusive to this blog, here are some of my more favorite Unmailed Letters....

To the white trash family that lives at the top of the street:

Good morning, crackers! It's your neighbor James, you might remember me from a few weeks ago when I came over to politely ask you to stop having the three of your nineteen kids that drive, to stop driving so fast up and down the street in their shitty cars? Do you remember that? Remember how I even identified myself as a Peace Officer, and we shook hands? You were shirtless at the time, and presumably barefoot as well. Your smaller children were scattered all over your makeshift property? They had dirty clothes and dirty faces? You smelled like burning marijuana?

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know how much I love being ignored! Even more so, I wanted to let you know how much I love the fact that you also ignore safety on a regular basis! I love how your property is littered with shitty cars, some running, some not. I love how you all decide to use our tiny street as your personal drag strip! I love hearing the shitty loud exhaust at all hours! I love how you keep me from maybe taking a 45 minute long nap by racing up and down the street all day. Also, that tinny whine from that mini bike you ride, which is illegally unregistered and illegally operated by an unlicensed individual, makes my ears bleed. So thank you for ruining some of my more favorite t shirts with a fad toy from two years ago that you just got off of lay-away.

Also, thank you so much for providing me with a real life episode of COPS twice weekly. Having Biddeford's Finest respond to your domestic issues at all hours, and screaming obscenities into the night air gives me a warm fuzzy feeling down in the base of my balls.

By the way, you're also very poor.

I hope that life finds you all well, with unscrubbed faces and unlaundered clothing. Also, the can of paint I plan on tossing on to that shitty primer gray VW Golf that keeps racing up and down the street is complimentary.

Bests..... James.

To my former upstairs Jewish neighbors in Queens, NY:

Shalom! I hope that whatever crazy Jewish holidays that have passed recently found you all well. I'm so sorry things didn't work out for us better... I was really looking forward to the man of the family letting himself into my apartment to turn down my appliances again. Nothing says "welcome to the neighborhood" like a creepy Jewish guy standing with muddy boots in my freshly washed kitchen floor, touching my property while I'm taking a piss.

I'm sorry that my work schedule was inconvenient for you and your family, and you had to report my landlord to the authorities, after less than a month, instead of just catching me while I was home and asking me to not play my tv/stereo/lady I was having sex with so loudly.

However I commend you on your ability to find a corrupt Russian landlord in a city that's only filled with them, and then reporting him to the City's Housing Board so that the only punishment that would be meeted out was me losing my home.

Anyway, I hope your small child grows up unathletic and greedy.

Mozel Tav! ...James.

To Howard Stern:

Howard... just a quick note to say that you're really not that funny. You're not god's gift to free speech. Just because you can get porn stars to fuck each other with modified power tools on your radio program only means that you were the first to put the idea in action. There are literally a million other people out there that had the same idea/s as you, but you only had the good fortune of getting on the air first.

Good luck with the satellite radio thing. It only downside is that your replacement was a post-rehab David Lee Roth, who is the only person on this entire planet who is more opinionated/bitchier than me.

Oh and I miss the awkward pauses on live radio early in the morning.

Baba-Booey.... James.

To Tv's Jack Bauer from FOX's '24':

You're awesome. Keep up the good work.

Man-crushing on you..... James.

To Olympian Bode Miller:

As if it wasn't already hard enough to be American in the world's eye, you come along and make it that much harder, you fucking choke artist.

Granted, the Winter Olympics in Torino were months ago, but you know, I just wanted to take an extra second here and tell you how much you suck. You suck harder than Howard Stern's show. You suck more than the Yankees, and they suck a whole lot.

All I can think of is the poor kid who worked his ass of, who wasn't born with the same talent as you, who missed the team cut off and was forced to be an alternate by maybe three seconds. He would've appreciated going to the Olympics, and he would've represented America proudly. Instead of going to night clubs all night, fucking ridiculously hot italian broads (the ones with the waxed mustaches), and presumably doing ice booze louges into the wee hours, he would've been at practice, and shit, maybe would've medaled. But no one will ever really know, will they?

So again, thanks for all the unnecessary hype. Thanks for affirming the idea in the international community that Americans are excessive consumers and have zero respect for age old cultural traditions, you fucking hack.

Next time you choke, I hope you die.... James.

To President Bush:

At the risk of having my door kicked in by federal agents (maybe... Jack Bauer? That'd be really hot actually...) I'll keep this short and thinly veiled... you're not doing a very good job sir.

I don't necessarily blame you, I mostly blame your administration. See, as a proud republican, you guys are making it awfully hard for me to stay along the party lines. You all are so super fucking conservative that you make the Nazi Party seem somewhat warm/friendly.

Everyone in your administration is on their own agendas, and quite frankly sir, you were somewhat under-qualified for this job you took on to begin with. When you first took office, we all thought that "hey, we're progressive! This will be a quick four year stint, and then we'll get back to having an actual president, not a funny go-betweener." The 9/11 happened and the shit hit the fan. We all turned towards the administration, with their figure piece, and collectively said "oh shit..."

We still are progressive though, ... we're the first country to elect someone who is clinically retarded to the office of President. Hey, we got a retard in before a black guy! NICE.

You're actions in Afghanistan were warranted, but then the whole Iraq thing happened. Your administration poured honey into your oversized ears and told you to lie to us, to coddle falsified reports about Weapons of Mass Destruction. Cuz I mean, basically, you're just the pretty face on the program. You're the picture of Mr. Clean on the bottle. You don't really do anything at all, except go to press junkets and do photo ops holding a giant turkey at Christmas for our troops overseas. You're a bastard, but the rest of your crew are even bigger bastards.

In closing sir, I'm still going to stay the course with the Republican Party, however, as a formerly staunch Republican, I'm going to ask that you consider maybe lightening up a little. I mean, fuck, you love to quote Jesus this and Jesus That.... dude, Jesus was the definition of bi-partison.

And don't even get me started on gas prices around here... dude, you worked in the oil business... that's no excuse to why I put 20 bucks into my small 4 cylinder truck and the needle doesn't even touch the half-way mark. Goddamnit.

Anyway, good luck with the next two or so years fucking us all in the collective asshole.... James.

Un-mailed Letters, Pt. 5: Angrier Than The Last Four Combined!

A wise man once said that if something pisses you off, write a letter about it, but don't mail it. I now present to you, the fifth installment of my un-mailed letters.

To My Tenants:

Where do I begin with you pack of ungrateful assholes? After spending the whole summer fixing up this decrepit building, you turn your kids, or even you yourselves against it. Every morning when I wake up I find something else broken, trash strewn about the property, gum left on the brand new five-thousand dollar drive ways. We've spoken to you each separately, pleading with you to please mind the grass, don't let your kids rip up the posts that mark the property, please don't step in the wet paint and walk all over the place, please don't park your car across the goddamn lines we painted for parking spaces... etc etc.

So, instead of just making this a general proclamation of my discontent with you ingrates, I'll break down your specific crimes, so everyone can see exactly what you're doing.

First, to the couple who live underneath me. I won't even bring up the fact that I constantly hear random banging and crashing down there, and add the fact that your toddler is in an arm cast. I won't even mention that when I went into your apartment, I was knee deep in a sea of loose garbage and trash. Unpacked boxes cluttering the floor and counter spaces. Food left out, spoiled. You're animals. I can't believe you're even trying to raise a child down there.

You claim, sir, that you "teach break dancing" to local kids, using the end of the driveway as your studio. Not once, ever, have I seen you "teaching" break dancing to anyone. I see a bunch of punk kids disrespecting my property and loitering maybe... I also notice that they get really hush-hush when I'm around, probably because you're selling drugs to them. That would also explain the scent of burning marijuana that comes up into my apartment from below, because you're smoking it all the time.

Awesome, thanks for turning my beautiful apartment building into a crack den, asshole. I won't even mention how stupid and ugly you're live-in girlfriend is. How about next time you have a complaint against me, you come out from behind your fucking girlfriend's skirt and talk to me directly like a man would, you dickless bitch.

To the tenants who share a kitchen wall with me. Thanks for finally paying your electric bill that is still under my parents' name, that you seem to "forget" to change back to your names, you lying shitheels. Thanks too for cutting us a bad check and making my mom lose her pay check to cover the bounce. If you can't get your shit together, come to us and tell us. Don't literally cut and run - by cutting us a bad check and then getting the fuck out of town for the weekend. You're lucky that you did leave town though, because I probably would've kicked your skinny bi-sexual-looking ass off your freshly painted porch, jumped down after you, and continued to kick your ass across the freshly seeded lawn, you mother fucker. I don't care that you lost your job because you lost your license, I want my fucking money. In case you didn't hear that, I said: I WANT MY FUCKING MONEY!

You can't pay, you can't stay. Simple as that.

And also, you spineless coward, send your pregnant wife to beg us to let you back into your shitty apartment, and I'll give her the keys, walk over, and beat you in the street like the mangy dog you are.

To the asshole who lives on the first floor, front: Thanks for finally doing the bare minimum by hanging those doors we bought almost two months ago. You kept telling us and telling us that you were going to get them done "by this weekend" but every time I walked by your place, there you were on your couch drinking Coors Light. "Oh, I forgot my tools again," you'd whine, you sniveling bitch. We have a whole tool shop in our garage, maybe you missed us working our asses off every day on this building. Also, get your fucking destructive 8 year old under control. If I find one more post ripped up, I'm going to beat him with it. How do I know it's him? Because there's little toy cars left on the ground next to the ripped up post you schmuck. I'll ram one up your ass if it helps get the point across.

I know we paid you in advance to hang those doors, and that was our fault. But you took advantage of us and had that money spent before you even hung door one. We had to ride your ass for over a month to get them up, and they're not even done. I swear to go if I ever see you crossing a street, I'm going to swerve and hit you.

Sincerely,
Your Building Manager.

To The Lady At Church With The Staring Problem:

Ma'am, I do realize that I have a mohawk, and that I'm in a house of worship. But God doesn't care, so why should you? Does it disrupt your prayer, your communication with God? No? Good, then stop glancing at me from the corner of your eye. I'm a practicing Catholic just like you, I bring my grandmother here every Saturday- and she's proud to be on my arm- and I am probably the sharpest dressed motherfucker you've ever seen grace these hallowed halls, so stop looking at the top of my head.

Bitch, it's just hair. And I look badass.

Signed,
Your Worst Nightmare, Apparently.


To The Twat At Crapplebees Last Night:

Who the hell do you think you are, cheering for Cleveland? Do you not know you're in New England? I mean, I would stand the cheers for the Yankees, just because geographically it makes a little more sense than cheering for fucking Cleveland. I hope you heard me when my date asked me where I thought you and your party were from and I responded with "Bitchsburg."

I'm all for showing support for your favorite team, but at the excess that you were doing it was uncouth and irresponsible. I would send you a drink to get you to shut up, but I would be too compelled to smash the glass over your head and then kick you in the face as you took to the fetal position.

Sabathia, pfft.

Sincerely,
Red Sox Nation Member 14,098


To My Old Boss:

Hey ******, I want to send you a little note of thanks. Thanks? I know, it seems weird. Don't bother to check this paper for anything suspicious; the topical agents I use would pass a black light and a chromatography test.

Anyway, no I'm extending to you genuine thanks. Your bitchiness, unobtainable high standards, your constant double-speak, the way you tried to befriend me and then when I told you I wouldn't sleep with you because it was unprofessional-attitude gave me the push I needed to excel into a direction that I needed to head in.

I was wasting away behind that desk, in that office. I did nothing all day and never felt I was making an impact on the world or even my local society. I was just a drone, buzzing away in the hive under a malicious and pernicious queen. I hated that job, and I hated getting up every day to drag myself to it. I loved the people I worked with, but I couldn't stand your management style. You're a piss poor leader and I imagine, friendless.

You had a hot daughter though, kudos for that.

So, thanks for pushing me out the door with the boot and having security escort me out of the building in a humiliating fashion. Thanks for making me the topic of rumor in my mother's office across the hall too, might I add. But thanks, truly, for letting me see my true potential.

I hope when that office does finally collapse around you, your death is quick. You deserve that much.

Love,
Your Former Employee.