Dear Sir or Madam,

Yes, I am aware that it was last Friday that was blackened by the bedlam of post-Thanksgiving shopping, but I am choosing to observe it this week. Because truly, with the exponential swelling of the Consumeristmas complex typified by the voracity of the regular buyophile, like in a TGIF’s in Roxbury, it’s always Black Friday. Incidentally, this current lapse of mine has nothing to do with the tryptophan-induced coma I descended into this past Thursday. Nothing at all.

I did awake on the floor of my foyer yesterday afternoon with no memory of how I had gotten there. My mouth, raw from the seven days of cunnilingus I had treated my Savonnerie to, somehow still held the flavour of the Beaujolais I’d enjoyed all too well at the feast of week prior. The fruity notes had been displaced by the coppery tones of dried blood, but a solid pumpkin pie belch removed all concern.

An attempt to stand and thus immediately recollect humanity ended in abrupt, spectacular failure. I discovered that I was very dehydrated. This followed, of course, considering my condition and the events leading up to it, but cognitive reasoning was difficult at the time, as I was very dehydrated.

Perching myself underneath the gilded faucet I had installed by the front entrance — for solicitors who wish to shake my hand — I gratefully lapped at the nectar of the tap, trying desperately to ignore the scant but all too present taste of the local impurities. After a few moments’ feverish slurping, however, the idea of ingesting water that did not even purport to be from France became unbearable and once again sensibilities prevailed over self-preservation.

Wrapping a cloak around my frail, thirsty frame, I shambled to a taximan and requested he take me to a convenience store located albeit not so conveniently outside of my general neighbourhood. I would not be seen in my current ruin, although I knew it would be a long ride. You know, you demand a sense of exclusivity and luxury in the community you choose to live in and before you know it, you need to take a taxi to purchase a gallon of milk that wasn’t squozen from New Delhi cows. I pointed to an establishment that had the least amount of shit scratched onto the windows, and threw a knot of bills at the cabbie. I deduced that in the time it would take him to work out that I overpaid, he could have easily made as much by finding another fare. Excellent.

The store did not have Perrier, nor did it have Evian or Sueur D’reine. Distraught, I picked up a jug of RC Water and employed a trick I learned from the mountain priests of Appalachia. Sketching the second secret cruciform of YHBH crudely with a store brand lipliner, I appealed anonymously to a neglected saint that he or she might bless my cheap water and make it more valuable. I think it worked. An unwed mother two aisles over suddenly miscarried.

Triumphant, but still crunchy and delirious with fatigue, I clutched my parcel to my stomach, which roared with want as I waited in the line of unimportants. “Can I help who’s next?” clucked Chavon, my indifferent savior. A pet peeve of mine peeved inside my head, and I could have ignored it, but as I continue to remind, I was very dehydrated.“You are aware that is not English, yes?”
“Fuh?”
“‘Can I help who’s next?’ That isn’t English.”
“Wha?”
“You could say for instance, ‘May I help whoever is next?’ or ‘May I help the one who’s next?’ or how about simply, ‘Who’s next?’”

This sentiment was expressed to a rather unfriendly manager as he granted me egress without water. Once yet again sensibilities prevail over self-preservation, and stupidity prevails over all. Welcome to the Holiday Season.

Yours Faithfully, The Gentleman of the Site

P.S.

These hideous mistakes of programming that have befallen me and mine will not stand. The one who’s fault it is will be found and killed, possibly by some sort of snake that is also on fire. That is all.

Dear Chuck Norris,

Don’t hold your breath, Bill Brasky. Simply because a cult of Internet memephiles has been hacky-sacking your name around in tall tales and anti-aphorisms, doesn’t mean that anyone in the Mountain Dew demographic is going to take Chun Kuk Do classes, lobby for prayer in public schools, or vote for Mike Huckabee.

The googling masses may have deified you, but you are a curious sort of god. Unlike other almighty-mighties, you have been deemed worthy of worship because of — not in spite of — being illusory. Every answered prayer, every public statement, every evidence that you are more than a two dimensional silver screen image will cut into your divinity until one day the capricious crowds find a new golden calf more worthy of their humanistic magnification.

Yours Faithfully, The Gentleman of the Site

Dear Sir or Madam,

It is the belief of some zoologists and most idiots that animals possess the capacity for language. I should think not. Given the sexual liberalism of most beasts, it is unlikely that they are able to speak to each other, as that is generally what fouls up the reproductive process for us “more evolved” mammals. Some of the most ardent of romances have been shattered by only a glib utterance. Conversely, some of the most successful trysts transpire without a word exchanged by the participants. Not even one of consent, if you widen your definition of “success.”

I have witnessed firsthand in the modern club and house party scene, how the contempt of communication has been accommodated. Music is played at such a volume that one is hardly capable of rational thought, let alone hearing, which is an even greater sexual expedient. Wang Chung blends into Chingy blends into the sound of your inner ear rupturing blends into an endless ocean of white silence and before you know it, you’re sucking a face you cannot place to a name, a voice, or a personality. This too could be a veritable boon, if none of these happen to matter (or perhaps apply) to you.

Furthermore, the current fashions of dance hamper any sort of connection between partners, except for the warm one between strangers’ arses and crotches. There was a time, granted, when the steps one had to memorize were so complicated that it negated all outside thought. Why, once while attempting the Manhattan Bunrug with a fetching lass I’d met that evening, she paused momentarily to ask my name. The lapse of coordination caused me to strike her neck with my wheeling ankle, breaking it. “That’s my name, you lead-footed cow!” I said to fill the silence of the stunned throng as I made my hasty exit. Note that the accident is the greatest crime of all. It is best to imply reason for all your random actions; most people deserve everything that happens to them anyway. Probably.

Over time the waltz, the samba, the impadògrée all degenerated into an easy, languid sway, suitable for the charmless and the drunk, not to mention overcrowded venues where both hearing and sight are nigh impossible and a casualty like my dancing partner would go unnoticed for hours or even days depending on how compacted she is by then.

You will find that when waxing metronomic with an arbitrary rump, that it is difficult to engage in any sort of meaningful communication. The meager request to see the girl’s eyes for a moment for example, should the sweaty, matted back of her head begin to bore you, will result in termination of the encounter. I was tracing the designer logo of your jeans with my glans a moment ago, madam, but you are right. Eye contact is far too forward.

This is hardly a primary source, but I am reminded of a story a close friend of mine told me about a young woman he knew who had given her virginity to a most unworthy suitor. Hardly an original predicament, but amusing nonetheless. It seems that after the deflowering, the prince was heard to exclaim, “Great success! High five?” à la Borat. She responded by sobbing uncontrollably for three hours. It was not said how the thief-of-hearts’ unflappable wit reacted to her shocking dismay, but I would imagine it went, “I deserve that, but considering this is the most we’ve spoken since meeting two hours ago, you probably deserve me.”

Yours Faithfully, The Gentleman of the Site

Dear Sir or Madam,

Such a man I saw to-day, it is not to be believed. Exacerbating this condition of incredulity was the fact that he could scarcely be seen all at once, save from a great distance, as I was, and remained for a time, out of fear of being eaten. Needless to say, this fellow was fat. Needless to say, yet quite enjoyable to say, this fellow was extravagantly corpulent in a drippy, sloppy, did-somebody-say-McDonald’s? sort of way. I immediately made an afternoon of him.

He was as big as a horse, if a horse was the size of a goddamn bus, but the bus is filled with horsemeat, and does smell like something that had been ridden all day. He was fairly tall, but imperceptibly so, as he had the appearance of being stacked, not unlike pancakes — you are what you eat after all. Also, manure. This appearance of cheeseburger Jenga telegraphed to his manner of walking as well. The thunder of his footsteps comically jarred the protrusion from his chins that passed for his head from side to side, as if he were vacillating between buffet lines. He almost had the appearance of one making their way through a blizzard, and I suppose there is a hint of truth in that. The ghost of his skeleton eternally trudging through an endless winter of adiposity, the unmitigated warmth of his subcutaneous upholstery masking a deeper coldness of the soul. It would be sad, if it were not so very, very funny.

And why not laugh? The most horrendous things in world have involved skinny people: concentration camps, children starving in third world countries, anything Tyra Banks has touched. It’s only logical that things involving the obese are funny, and, let me tell you, this guy — this hillock of a pillock — was bloody quadruple bypass hysterical.

This was the best part. I swear, by the diamonds in my cufflinks, that clutched in his chubby paw, as plain as he was planar, was a bucket of fried chicken. How gastronomically astronomical! You know, I’ve always thought it apropos that most conventional fast food fried chicken (for those establishments that are still legally allowed to refer to their bird by that name) comes in a bucket, and this event just sinks that right home. It should come with a little shovel too, or eyeholes so you can put it on over your greasy mess shameface. Better yet, the empty vessel should be used for vomiting. For you or for me, Mr. Creosote? Let’s not be too hesitant. After that display of frenzied gourmandism, one of us is definitely going to be very ill very soon.

After I accepted that this man of magnitude was not going to fall down for me no matter how I wished otherwise, I let him go, and it seemed the appropriate velocity to escape his gravitational pull needn’t be more than my wistful shuffle. I reflected on how he had brightened my day though he eclipsed the sun, and thought deep thoughts, deeper than his navel. Though I’ve never had much interest in Christmas, the fat man did remind me of Santa Claus. Minus the jolliness, but twice the size, as his presents were in his presence. A reminder that life is not to be slipped through, but devoured; that greatness comes in all forms; and that no matter how little self esteem you may have, you may take heart that you’ll never be as terrifically, despicably, ri-goddamn-diculously gluttonacious as he. Probably.

Yours Faithfully, The Gentleman of the Site

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Dear Crispy,

I find most relevant traffic — even when the adjective is so extravagantly capitalized — to be overrated. I happen to enjoy the fact that a percentage of my viewership is from people haphazardly entering one of the many words I’ve coined over the past few months into a search engine. Rutabagel. There, now my fanbase has swollen to encompass eccentric Jewish bakers. All for free. Can you reduce the cost of free? I submit that you cannot.

In addition, I take offense to your condemnations so-quoted as to ostracize them from the other words. I’ll have you know I come from a long line of link farmers. Big burly fellows, up at the hump before the crack of dawn to plant and harvest the links. Hours of toil, watering and tending and the rubbing of oil. The links would shoot up, links of all sizes, some high as a gryphon’s eye. I used to ride them, because I’ve decided they’re animals now, not plants as I suggested earlier in this farce. I rode the links to market, and you’d damn well better believe I wore a black hat. I’m eating a link breast sandwich with a light link salad on the side. In my dandy F-your-proposal black hat.

Now stop sending me vaguely helpful emilies and get back to “tieens showerd in see-men.”

Yours Faithfully, The Gentleman of the Site

If you would like to send me an emily that I might place it on the front of this site, which in many ways is like the Internet’s refrigerator, so you may pretend that to-day’s cartoon was drawn just for you, please consult the Contact page or just fire randomly at gentleman@gentlemancomics.com.