Dear White Girl Who Sings As If She Were Black,

Sweetie, take off that ridiculous hat and stop swaying the generous hips you haven’t got. You’ve neither soul, nor the faculties to express it. Everyone thinks you’re a poseur, including your black boyfriend.

Yours Faithfully, The Gentleman of the Site

Dear Sir or Madam,

I was once accused, you know. Of murder, rather. Really though, is there any other type of accusation worth going on about? Paternity perhaps, but I only talk of this particular accusal, because I happened to be innocent. A novelty, to be sure.

Certainly it would have been in vogue to be amongst the ‘haute meurtre’ scene going on at the time. Rubbing elbows with smart chaps like Darby O’Kingers, who ate people’s fingers. He was untouchable in his heyday.

But alas, what occurred was merely a funny misunderstanding. It seems a messenger boy was found in front of the New York brownstone I occasionally autumn in — and his head was not, you see. In the days leading up to the crime, it was widely known that a misfortune had befallen me, regarding a business partner absconding with a great percentage of my capital, so naturally it was this boy’s task to inform yours faithfully, the last to know. It was thus assumed that I’d sent him back with the most effective message of his career, by relieving him of his freckled head. [My legal counsel has advised me to add that I only assume he had freckles. It is a common trait of victims in my experience.]

As it turned out, the real culprits were two local children who had been playing with bicycles and razor wire, in the usual way. They were, in due course, forced to fight to the death and then the winner was fined twice what she was worth. The subsequent dip in notoriety for me was annoying, so I revealed that the alleged business partner was, in fact, myself under an alias! A self-embezzlement. A novelty, to be sure.

Yours Faithfully, The Gentleman of the Site