Professional smart-ass David Thorne

[Larry Kart]

... this one did to mine:

http://www.27bslash6.com/missy.html

Thorne may be old news, perhaps, but if you have a taste for this sort of thing, he does seem to be a specialist.

[Dan Gould]

Not quite tears of laughter but pretty good.

[Larry Kart]

This one also has its moments:

http://www.27bslash6.com/flash.html

[Noj]

Hahahaha, as the youngsters say, there is "so much win" in his email responses. I had seen the one about the lost cat, but not the correspondence with the teacher. So awesome that she speaks with the principal and gets the ban lifted at the end.

[BruceH]

Actually, the first one elicited tears of sadness from me on behalf of poor, lost Missy.

(Not.)

[clifford_thornton]

yeah that Missy post is a classic.

[Big Wheel]

this was the one that started it all for me: http://www.27bslash6.com/overdue.html

[JSngry]

If those are fake letters, they're pretty funny.

If they're real letters dealing with real situations, the guy's not funny at all, he's just an asshole.

[Big Wheel]

I think virtually all of them have been cleverly fabricated.

That said, aside from the Missy one, which plays on a relatively powerless person's bereavement for their pet, most of them are taking on people with some degree of authority or power. Who hasn't wanted to exact this kind of revenge on self-important cops or faceless corporations?

[Quincy]

Actually, the first one elicited tears of sadness from me on behalf of poor, lost Missy.

(Not.)

The only problem I have with the Missy post is that the cat is almost spot on what mine looks like (though mine has a better mustache.) It makes me wonder if I should have a pre-made lost poster just in case, and then seeing where that goes...hoo ha!

Edited March 1, 2011 by Quincy

[AllenLowe]

isn't he copying the whole "Lazlo letters" thing (I think that's what it was called; it was a bunch of letters sent by the guy who played Guido Sarducci)?

[Larry Kart]

I'm sure they're fabricated. The responses from, say, Missy's owner Shannon are just too obtuse, but pitch-perfect for all that. I particularly like his second poster, in response to her complaint that the image of Missy in the first one is too small.

A definite Monty Python vibe, a la the Dead Parrot routine. One of the other exchanges suggests that Mr. Thorne is a resident of Adelaide, Australia.

[JSngry]

I think virtually all of them have been cleverly fabricated.

That said, aside from the Missy one, which plays on a relatively powerless person's bereavement for their pet, most of them are taking on people with some degree of authority or power. Who hasn't wanted to exact this kind of revenge on self-important cops or faceless corporations?

Well, sure, we all have, but when you're dealing with written correspondence like that, you're not dealing with a faceless person. You're dealing with somebody who may very well be not unlike yourself, a front-line staffer who's doing the gig to make their nut, not because they really get off on any kind of a power trip.

The one with the teacher & the flash drive was particularly ugly. Flash drives are infamous for being used to disseminate viruses, and the kid knew it. Having your kid knowingly violate a perfectly acceptable school policy is not something to defend, much less harass a teacher over.

And getting all passive-aggressive snotty with a coworker over her missing cat, that's not cool either. I can dig that it's not your gig and all that, but c'mon...

Even if it is all fabricated (and if you guys say so, I'll believe you), after a while it rubs me the wrong way, because the targets are always below, never above. Too easy, kinda mean-spirited, and...maybe not very nice, really. If you're going to shoot, shoot level or above, never below. That's what the bully does.

[BruceH]

I'd be willing to bet that all the e-mails are fabricated rather than sent from real, put-upon people.

[Chuck Nessa]

I'm sure all is fabricated. My daughter Carla (designer of my cd packages) hipped me to the "cat" sequence last year. All her graphic designer friends enjoyed the exchange.

[Big Wheel]

I think virtually all of them have been cleverly fabricated.

That said, aside from the Missy one, which plays on a relatively powerless person's bereavement for their pet, most of them are taking on people with some degree of authority or power. Who hasn't wanted to exact this kind of revenge on self-important cops or faceless corporations?

Well, sure, we all have, but when you're dealing with written correspondence like that, you're not dealing with a faceless person. You're dealing with somebody who may very well be not unlike yourself, a front-line staffer who's doing the gig to make their nut, not because they really get off on any kind of a power trip.

But that's kind of Thorne's point, I think. These people may only do this kind of stupid, soul-draining, often antisocial work because they have to make a living, but they still do it. I can see how people could see an adolescent solipsism in that ("I am a CREATIVE INDIVIDUAL and the rest of you are stupid soulless drones in the machine!") but hell, there's a reason we tend to laugh the hardest at dumb adolescent humor.

And the cat thing, well, that's funny because a) it would take virtually zero effort for the coworker to have done an acceptable-looking version herself; b) the coworker not only is demanding it be done immediately, but also is leaving work in the middle of the day and isn't even considerate enough to ask him if that's OK; c) if Thorne's impression of her work is accurate, the 5 minutes spent in MS Paint would only be cutting into her time goofing off and socializing at work; d) she can't come downstairs and just discuss this request with him in person? Thorne's managed to take what would ordinarily be a really sad situation and make the character in it just unsympathetic and manipulative enough that we don't feel too bad when Thorne turns the tables and toys with her.

Edited March 2, 2011 by Big Wheel

[Dave James]

isn't he copying the whole "Lazlo letters" thing (I think that's what it was called; it was a bunch of letters sent by the guy who played Guido Sarducci)?

Don Novello.

[JSngry]

there's a reason we tend to laugh the hardest at dumb adolescent humor.

We do?

[Big Wheel]

there's a reason we tend to laugh the hardest at dumb adolescent humor.

We do?

What was the last movie that made you doubled over with laughter? I appreciated Annie Hall and chuckled through it, but it didn't leave me gasping for breath like some of the more absurd and stupid parts of The Hangover.

[JSngry]

Jeez, I can't even remember the last movie I saw...Julie & Julia, maybe, as far as theatrical releases go...

I tend to have the reflexive laughter spasms when something unexpected and incongruous comes out of left field with a totally straight face. That's what usually gets me.

Oh yeah, night before last, watching King Of The Hill w/my daughter - "Baby want a bottle? A BIG DIRT BOTTLE?" That one gets me every time.

Andy Kaufman's conga guy, that too.

[Chuck Nessa]

If you enjoy Kaufman, this should be right up your alley.

They make people uncomfortable............

[JSngry]

Loved Kaufman, but not this. Go figure.

But enough of that.

[Larry Kart]

OK -- I unexpectedly need this guy for real. Today I stopped by a nearby library where deacessioned books often are on sale, and saw on the shelves the five-volume 1965 Oxford University Press edition of Addison and Steele's "The Spectator" for $1 a volume. They're well-used but in readable shape, so I take them to the front desk, give the librarian $5 and start to walk out, whereupon I set off the library's electronic security wicket. I return to the front desk, maybe five feet behind me, where the librarian determines that each volume still has a plastic patch stuck inside the front cover with a bit of wiring underneath that sets off that alarm unless it's been electronically zapped at the front desk. So she snips off the dust jacket, and starts to attack the first volume's plastic patch with a razor blade. (Why she doesn't just zap each volume I don't know, but this is her chosen solution.)

So I say something like, "Hey, there's no need to disfigure these books. I just paid you for them, so stop chopping up the inside of the front covers and let me walk out with the books, even though the alarm will go off." And she says, displaying the seat-of-the-pants genius with which a seasoned pro responds to stress, "But I can't have you setting off other alarms." To this I say, "I'm just going to take them home -- I don't have an alarm system there," but I know when I'm defeated. (From the set of her jaw, I think that if I had at this point just taken the books from her and walked out the door, she would have called the cops.) And she proceeds to chop away at the inside covers of all five volumes of "The Spectator" to her bureaucratic heart's delight, though perhaps a bit less so than she might have done otherwise.

Seems to me that in this case, which I think is far from unique, the "but the person is just doing their job" explanation/excuse doesn't hold up.

[JSngry]

You didn't ask her to get them zapped instead?

[Larry Kart]

That didn't occur to me until it was too late -- perhaps because I've been in situations lots of times before where the alarm went off because the zapping action wasn't effective on a book you've checked out, and they have to zap it again. So I might have half-assumed that this common remedy wasn't available to her for some reason or she would have resorted to it. Zapping five books surely would have been easier for her than gouging off those five plastic patches with a razor blade, but I don't think she was into easier. See "One Flew Over The Cuckoos' Nest."