quilled correspondence

My inbox was blessed with an email from The Hairdresser.

“Dear Juan John Don,

As a fellow student of Beckett’s park bench school of existential observation, I share your cynical dismay. The only difference between Comedy Central and Fox News is tongue placement when interviewing Miss California. It is not surprising that an alarming number of movement conservatives believe Stephen Colbert is mocking Jon Stewart. Perhaps my old Abnormal Psych notebook contains scrawled reminders that the mentally ill cannot comprehend the meaning of fair or balanced.

I agree that a sizable chunk of the Republican Party’s dire straights can be attributed to self-inflicted success; dominating media outlets for a generation has created the illusion of majority status. Because of rightwing radio saturation and entrenched Beltway enablers, the echo chamber effect equates Rush Limbaugh’s bank account with national popularity. On-going attempts to tar Barack Obama as The Weather Underground’s latest point man is a classic example of George Weinberg’s Projection Principle. It takes little imagination to see post-Reagan conservatism as nothing more than opportunistic nihilism. I am confident that the person President Obama picks to replace Justice Souter will have their scalp thoroughly searched for signs of The Beast”.
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Dear ________,

Thank you for the email. All I’ve received the past two days are spam reminders to double check my credit report -- like someone would make the effort to swipe my thin limit. The poor bastard might get as far as Ponca City before taking refuge in the nearest hobo jungle. Unfamiliar with George Weinberg, I took time away from thoroughly reviewing Miss California’s free torso upgrade to google his work. You may remember that the only way I aced Psych 101 was pretending a paranormal link to doomed Titanic passenger Richard White. Had not Dr. ____ admitted his eager participation in CIA orchestrated LSD experiments, the idea to feign an irrational fear of ice via reincarnation would probably not have occurred to me. I’m pleased to learn that Weinberg coined the term ‘homophobic’. I have long attributed authorship to the late Jerry Falwell. Mr. Yellowman had me convinced Falwell conjured up the word after an especially relaxing deep muscle massage left his little martini glass shaken AND stirred. Please don’t repeat this. With each passing day my thread-bare dignity takes a clothes line beating.

You should find small comfort in the National Council for a New America. Fielding fresh Republican talent to crash pizzerias, the Party of No has decided to reboot their My Space account. And who better to sway younger voters than Newt Gingrich, John McCain, Mitt Romney Jeb Bush and Haley Barbour? Do they form a Conga line?

It’s all beautiful,

Juan Don