This isn't recent, but nonetheless perhaps enjoyable.
The City of Los Angeles has bizarre plans for our beloved Griffith Park, embodied in what is called, ominously, the "Griffith Park Master Plan." The Los Angeles CityBeat newspaper published an article detailing the Plan, and I wrote them a letter which they published under the head, "Possibly the Best Letter Ever."
They didn't, obviously, know who they were dealing with. Here is the first letter:
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To the Editors:
Here is my personal and tragic story concerning the Griffith Park "Master Plan."
Not too long ago, I was on a long hike through the mountains of Griffith Park, savoring the beauty of the day, when I thought to myself: "something is missing here. What on earth could it be?" The fresh, quiet mountain air was invigorating, the city was spread before me in a gorgeous vista, and a shy doe peeked at me from behind a tree. What could possibly be wrong?
Puzzled, I paused to smoke an enormous load of crack. Then it dawned on me. "ARRGH," I shrieked, "a CULINARY SCHOOL!" For what is a park without a privately-owned culinary school? Sure, some "jerk" or "asshole" who wanted to start a culinary school could just "go and buy a commercially-zoned business like everyone else in the entire world," but for-profit culinary education and public parks go together like crack and smoking crack. Filled with inspiration and crack-highness, I began to wonder, "what further, undiscovered genius might lurk within my mind?" After raping several coyotes, I had the answer. A TRAMWAY! AN AERIAL TRAMWAY to the CULINARY SCHOOL! Just think! Young chefs in their toques, waving from the tram above as they smoke their crack, their tall white hats gleaming in the sunlight -- a vision of bliss.
When I "came to" in my house some days later, I began to research the idea, and it is impossible to imagine my surprise when I found out that the Los Angeles Department of Parks and Recreation had proposed not only an aerial tramway, but a culinary school!! INSIDE Griffith Park!!
My elation battled with my jealous rage. Surely, I was gratified to the point of orgasm that a tramway and culinary school would finally be built in Griffith Park. But dammit, I had had a stroke of genius and someone had beat me to it. I had to go back to the drawing board, and my efforts would need all my energy. My normal crack pipe would not suffice, so I went to Home Depot and bought several feet of 6" PVC pipe. I figured that if I also stuffed a crack rock into my personal nether-hole occasionally, it would provide me with added inspiration and pep.
Yet no matter how much crack I inserted into my personal regions, I could not best the culinary school/tramway idea. "What is the answer?" I asked myself. Then I garbled, "OF COURSE! CUISINE!" I prepared a sumptuous meal of Lobster-a-la-Crack-Cocaine with braised My-Own-Feces in a light Tar-Heroin glaze, and as I ate, a vision began to form. I screeched, "Why not open the mountain roads in the heart of Griffith Park to through-traffic? By Jove, if there's anything L.A. needs, it's more traffic!" Many times I had wandered on hikes through the park, thinking, "I certainly am not killed often enough. If only this road were opened to a bunch of fucking yahoos in Hummers, they could use it as a 'short-cut' between Burbank and Hollywood, and I could then be disemboweled with regularity. Then there are the many deer and other wildlife that live in the Park. Deer, as every school-child knows, are 'kind of gay,' and violent death should be some sort of relief for them. Also, the tortuous, steep mountain roads will no doubt produce all kinds of entertainingly spectacular vehicular accidents. In the rainy season we will be able to read a newspaper by the light of the explosions! The chefs in their tram will cheer Huzzah!"
You can imagine my profound disappointment when I discovered that the LADPR had already proposed this same and very brilliant idea. I became practically sick when I found that other propositions included no less than SIX multi-level parking structures! Of course! If the proposed wonderfulness of Griffith park was to be increased even further, the "dildos" who would tear around its roads in beautiful crack-foolery must have somewhere to park their "dildomobiles" while they are taking occasional and necessary crack-smoking breaks. Why hadn't I thought of it?
Then came the heaviest blow. The LADPR proposed a "Sports Complex," situated deep in the heart of the Park. This idea, too, had eluded me! When I considered the amazing and glorious riots fans threw to celebrate the Lakers' championship a few years ago, and the gobs of money to be made by billionaires, I nearly committed suicide by stopping smoking crack. But I had to get serious, and consider the marvellous skill of my competitors. "What a mighty and healthy load of crack they must be smoking," I told myself. "I will have to work like the devil himself if I want to outsmart the LADPR."
I bought nine pounds of PCP and rigged two small camp stoves into a modified scuba tank so that I could smoke PCP twenty-four hours a day. No L.A. City desk-jockey was going to beat me! The rig worked perfectly and within minutes I was attempting to make an airplane sandwich out of a screwdriver house. "Focus, Ferguson," I told myself. Though green elephants were trying to fly out of my nostrils, they couldn't keep genius from flying out of my brain. "A COMMERCIAL PIER," I gargled through my PCP/scuba mask, "on the L.A. RIVER!!!!" I was convinced I had got one up on the old City fogeys. "Sure," I croaked, "the L.A. River is a stinky trickle ten months of the year, and a raging, dangerous torrent the other two, but that's nothing a captain's hat and ascot won't fix! I can't wait to pull up to the Los Feliz Yacht Club aboard my 78-footer. She's as yar a vessel as ever sailed the Spanish Main, and her topgallant crosstrees are made entirely of crack pipes! 'Yo ho ho,' I'll cry, as the bosun's mate steps down from the fo'csle and hands me a tall, cool cocktail containing 'bat-fuck!'"
My dreams of "yo-ho-ho" and "bat-fuck" were, sadly, soon to be crushed. Again I had been defeated by the LADPR. The commercial pier idea was theirs first, and honestly won. There was no way I could enjoy my glass of "bat-fuck" or my captain's hat knowing I had once again been beaten by hard-working men and women, good and true.
Since then, I have become depressed. I have even neglected to smoke nearly as many mountains of crack as I ought to. Once, I did sniff glue for ten hours and came up with the idea of widening newly-opened roads in Griffith Park to over 120 feet, but soon remembered I had actually seen that proposal at the LADPR.
But I live in hope. Occasionally I shoot a mix of heroin and Drano into my eyeballs and think of projects beyond Griffith Park. Like the scrap-iron dealership I could start inside the Hollywood Bowl. Or the Getty Center Demolition Derby. And I never let the Anal Sex Fiesta at City Hall leave my mind. All these are good ideas, but so far, they have not been able to get me a job at the LADPR. All of my applications have been rejected, saying my ideas are "not up to our exacting standards of apeshit-crazy," and that I "do not smoke nearly enough crack." But I have the eye of the tiger, and one day I will join the men and women honorably serving the LADPR, and I will have the most goat-fuckingly crazy ideas they've ever seen! As God is my witness, I will have the most goat-fuckingly crazy ideas they've ever seen!
Yours in insane crack-rage,
Tim Ferguson
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OK, so that floated their boat, so I sent them another, under the subject "Best Letter Ever":
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear sirs and/or madames,
While sailing aboard my sloop, the Crack-Fool, the other day, the radioman's mate came to inform me that I was the author of "Possibly the Best Letter Ever."
My mind reeled. If my opinion-column-length diatribe was "Best Ever," perhaps I could regularly write some other sort of "Best-Ever" thing for the L.A. CityBeat. But what?
After some thought, it came to me. "Possibly the Best Obituaries Ever." The radioman's mate, however, said that this idea "fucking sucks ass-dick." And then I thought: why not "POSSIBLY THE BEST COLUMN EVER?" I was so overjoyed with my genius that I hurled Biggs (the radioman's mate) into the icy sea.
So I offer to you my services as author of "Possibly the Best Column Ever." You have my firm and manly guarantee it will contain nothing but throbbing column-inches of the Best Writing Ever.
My riches are of course lordly, and I will expect payment commensurate with those of an occasional columnist at an alternative weekly, i.e.: fantabulous. They always say, "You can never be too rich or too overpaid by an alternative weekly." So let the richening begin!
I humbly demand that you accept my request of employment.
Yrs trly, &c.,
Tim Ferguson
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Perhaps unsurprisingly, they did not reply to this letter, so I sent them another, under the subject "Best Telegram Ever." A link to it follows:
Best Telegram Ever
A year later, I still await a reply. How rude.
The City of Los Angeles has bizarre plans for our beloved Griffith Park, embodied in what is called, ominously, the "Griffith Park Master Plan." The Los Angeles CityBeat newspaper published an article detailing the Plan, and I wrote them a letter which they published under the head, "Possibly the Best Letter Ever."
They didn't, obviously, know who they were dealing with. Here is the first letter:
-------------------------------------------------------------------
To the Editors:
Here is my personal and tragic story concerning the Griffith Park "Master Plan."
Not too long ago, I was on a long hike through the mountains of Griffith Park, savoring the beauty of the day, when I thought to myself: "something is missing here. What on earth could it be?" The fresh, quiet mountain air was invigorating, the city was spread before me in a gorgeous vista, and a shy doe peeked at me from behind a tree. What could possibly be wrong?
Puzzled, I paused to smoke an enormous load of crack. Then it dawned on me. "ARRGH," I shrieked, "a CULINARY SCHOOL!" For what is a park without a privately-owned culinary school? Sure, some "jerk" or "asshole" who wanted to start a culinary school could just "go and buy a commercially-zoned business like everyone else in the entire world," but for-profit culinary education and public parks go together like crack and smoking crack. Filled with inspiration and crack-highness, I began to wonder, "what further, undiscovered genius might lurk within my mind?" After raping several coyotes, I had the answer. A TRAMWAY! AN AERIAL TRAMWAY to the CULINARY SCHOOL! Just think! Young chefs in their toques, waving from the tram above as they smoke their crack, their tall white hats gleaming in the sunlight -- a vision of bliss.
When I "came to" in my house some days later, I began to research the idea, and it is impossible to imagine my surprise when I found out that the Los Angeles Department of Parks and Recreation had proposed not only an aerial tramway, but a culinary school!! INSIDE Griffith Park!!
My elation battled with my jealous rage. Surely, I was gratified to the point of orgasm that a tramway and culinary school would finally be built in Griffith Park. But dammit, I had had a stroke of genius and someone had beat me to it. I had to go back to the drawing board, and my efforts would need all my energy. My normal crack pipe would not suffice, so I went to Home Depot and bought several feet of 6" PVC pipe. I figured that if I also stuffed a crack rock into my personal nether-hole occasionally, it would provide me with added inspiration and pep.
Yet no matter how much crack I inserted into my personal regions, I could not best the culinary school/tramway idea. "What is the answer?" I asked myself. Then I garbled, "OF COURSE! CUISINE!" I prepared a sumptuous meal of Lobster-a-la-Crack-Cocaine with braised My-Own-Feces in a light Tar-Heroin glaze, and as I ate, a vision began to form. I screeched, "Why not open the mountain roads in the heart of Griffith Park to through-traffic? By Jove, if there's anything L.A. needs, it's more traffic!" Many times I had wandered on hikes through the park, thinking, "I certainly am not killed often enough. If only this road were opened to a bunch of fucking yahoos in Hummers, they could use it as a 'short-cut' between Burbank and Hollywood, and I could then be disemboweled with regularity. Then there are the many deer and other wildlife that live in the Park. Deer, as every school-child knows, are 'kind of gay,' and violent death should be some sort of relief for them. Also, the tortuous, steep mountain roads will no doubt produce all kinds of entertainingly spectacular vehicular accidents. In the rainy season we will be able to read a newspaper by the light of the explosions! The chefs in their tram will cheer Huzzah!"
You can imagine my profound disappointment when I discovered that the LADPR had already proposed this same and very brilliant idea. I became practically sick when I found that other propositions included no less than SIX multi-level parking structures! Of course! If the proposed wonderfulness of Griffith park was to be increased even further, the "dildos" who would tear around its roads in beautiful crack-foolery must have somewhere to park their "dildomobiles" while they are taking occasional and necessary crack-smoking breaks. Why hadn't I thought of it?
Then came the heaviest blow. The LADPR proposed a "Sports Complex," situated deep in the heart of the Park. This idea, too, had eluded me! When I considered the amazing and glorious riots fans threw to celebrate the Lakers' championship a few years ago, and the gobs of money to be made by billionaires, I nearly committed suicide by stopping smoking crack. But I had to get serious, and consider the marvellous skill of my competitors. "What a mighty and healthy load of crack they must be smoking," I told myself. "I will have to work like the devil himself if I want to outsmart the LADPR."
I bought nine pounds of PCP and rigged two small camp stoves into a modified scuba tank so that I could smoke PCP twenty-four hours a day. No L.A. City desk-jockey was going to beat me! The rig worked perfectly and within minutes I was attempting to make an airplane sandwich out of a screwdriver house. "Focus, Ferguson," I told myself. Though green elephants were trying to fly out of my nostrils, they couldn't keep genius from flying out of my brain. "A COMMERCIAL PIER," I gargled through my PCP/scuba mask, "on the L.A. RIVER!!!!" I was convinced I had got one up on the old City fogeys. "Sure," I croaked, "the L.A. River is a stinky trickle ten months of the year, and a raging, dangerous torrent the other two, but that's nothing a captain's hat and ascot won't fix! I can't wait to pull up to the Los Feliz Yacht Club aboard my 78-footer. She's as yar a vessel as ever sailed the Spanish Main, and her topgallant crosstrees are made entirely of crack pipes! 'Yo ho ho,' I'll cry, as the bosun's mate steps down from the fo'csle and hands me a tall, cool cocktail containing 'bat-fuck!'"
My dreams of "yo-ho-ho" and "bat-fuck" were, sadly, soon to be crushed. Again I had been defeated by the LADPR. The commercial pier idea was theirs first, and honestly won. There was no way I could enjoy my glass of "bat-fuck" or my captain's hat knowing I had once again been beaten by hard-working men and women, good and true.
Since then, I have become depressed. I have even neglected to smoke nearly as many mountains of crack as I ought to. Once, I did sniff glue for ten hours and came up with the idea of widening newly-opened roads in Griffith Park to over 120 feet, but soon remembered I had actually seen that proposal at the LADPR.
But I live in hope. Occasionally I shoot a mix of heroin and Drano into my eyeballs and think of projects beyond Griffith Park. Like the scrap-iron dealership I could start inside the Hollywood Bowl. Or the Getty Center Demolition Derby. And I never let the Anal Sex Fiesta at City Hall leave my mind. All these are good ideas, but so far, they have not been able to get me a job at the LADPR. All of my applications have been rejected, saying my ideas are "not up to our exacting standards of apeshit-crazy," and that I "do not smoke nearly enough crack." But I have the eye of the tiger, and one day I will join the men and women honorably serving the LADPR, and I will have the most goat-fuckingly crazy ideas they've ever seen! As God is my witness, I will have the most goat-fuckingly crazy ideas they've ever seen!
Yours in insane crack-rage,
Tim Ferguson
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OK, so that floated their boat, so I sent them another, under the subject "Best Letter Ever":
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear sirs and/or madames,
While sailing aboard my sloop, the Crack-Fool, the other day, the radioman's mate came to inform me that I was the author of "Possibly the Best Letter Ever."
My mind reeled. If my opinion-column-length diatribe was "Best Ever," perhaps I could regularly write some other sort of "Best-Ever" thing for the L.A. CityBeat. But what?
After some thought, it came to me. "Possibly the Best Obituaries Ever." The radioman's mate, however, said that this idea "fucking sucks ass-dick." And then I thought: why not "POSSIBLY THE BEST COLUMN EVER?" I was so overjoyed with my genius that I hurled Biggs (the radioman's mate) into the icy sea.
So I offer to you my services as author of "Possibly the Best Column Ever." You have my firm and manly guarantee it will contain nothing but throbbing column-inches of the Best Writing Ever.
My riches are of course lordly, and I will expect payment commensurate with those of an occasional columnist at an alternative weekly, i.e.: fantabulous. They always say, "You can never be too rich or too overpaid by an alternative weekly." So let the richening begin!
I humbly demand that you accept my request of employment.
Yrs trly, &c.,
Tim Ferguson
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Perhaps unsurprisingly, they did not reply to this letter, so I sent them another, under the subject "Best Telegram Ever." A link to it follows:
Best Telegram Ever
A year later, I still await a reply. How rude.
re: a tall, cool cocktail containing 'bat-fuck!'
ReplyDeleteI invented that drink and you can expect a dmca (Department of Mixed Cocktails Ass.) takedown notice heading your way via my barrister! Good Day Sir!
HAHA!
ReplyDeleteI took your letter and repurposed it for my letter to the people who make the Shoedini. (I cc'd Gilbert Gottfried.) All the pertinent information has been replaced, including "bat fuck" with "horse diddlin's".
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBPAQ6CJvTo
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