aalgar.com

I’m getting mighty tired of the assumption that I’m going to be voting for Barack Obama in November. I mean, sure, I think the current leadership is perhaps the most misguided and inept this country has ever had — certainly in my lifetime — but does that mean I’m going to vote for the party that does not contain George W. Bush just to prove a point? That’s foolishness.

Most of my friends (who have long since decided they’re going with Obama) fit the same basic political profile: socially liberal, opposed to the war in Iraq, displeased with the direction the United States has taken these last 8 years. And I’m with them on all of that. But they forget that Bush’s harshest critic in the 2000 election was not Al Gore — it was John McCain. So impressed was I with the senator from the great state of Arizona in the 2000 primaries that I actually considered campaigning for the guy. No candidate before or since has inspired that sense of admiration in me. He was the first (and to date, the only) candidate I actually supported, rather than just not opposing.

The problem is, that McCain is long gone. It’s been fairly apparent to me over the last few years that he’s been positioning himself for this run. He’s moved his talking points toward the Republican party’s set-in-stone ideologies. He’s been a vocal supporter of the war. And he’s even made nice with the President. This is not the McCain I fell in love with, damn it.

But here’s the thing about Obama: the McCain camp has a solid point when they bring up the man’s inexperience. You know what other President came into the job with little experience? The current one. And how’s that working out for us? “Oh, but he’ll surround himself with smart advisors.” Again I ask: how’s that working out for us?

He also talks about Jesus far too much, which is another thing I was hoping we might move away from with our next leader. I won’t get into my specific feelings on God or religion here, because they’re not particularly relevant to my argument. Suffice it to say that I am a strong supporter of the separation of church and state. I think it’s inappropriate for any elected official to wear their religion on their sleeve. And I particularly oppose spending federal tax money — the money that’s taken out of my paycheck — on “faith based organizations.” Obama has promised to continue (and even expand) this practice, which was one of Bush’s big things. I’m pretty sure he’s doing all this to combat those ridiculous forwarded e-mails everyone gets from their mothers about Obama being a Muslim or something. To my way of thinking, he’s just overcorrecting and turning himself into the exact same sort of Jesus nut we’re trying to get rid of.

I just don’t buy into the hype surrounding Obama. He’s being marketed to me like some kind of goddamn rock star. Sure, maybe America does need a Clinton-type to make us feel good and inspired again, and on that front maybe he’s not a bad choice. I am tired of seeing media reports about how the media talks about Obama too much, though. Yeah, if only you, the media, could do something about that. Asshats.

At this moment, I’m still undecided. I refuse to vote for a Democrat simply on the basis of being opposed to the sitting Republican. I refuse to let a single issue guide my decision. And I absolutely refuse to vote for a guy because the media tells me he’s cool. I’m trying to make an informed decision here, based on real information and not just the usual knee-jerk superficial bullshit. Granted, I care about this stuff a lot less than I used to (the last 8 years, beginning with the 2000 election, have made me pretty cynical about politics as a whole), but I do think it’s important to vote for the guy I want, rather than against a guy I don’t want. Or worse, to vote with the goddamn pack. (I even have a friend on Facebook who’s threatened to cut off anyone who expresses support for McCain.)

Perhaps the debates will help me reach a decision. If nothing else, we’ll at least have two guys who can actually form complex sentences without tripping over their words, so it should make for a good show. It’s sad that we’ve reached a point at which having two vaguely literate candidates is something of a novelty, but that’s where we are, I guess.

In the archaic days of the mid-1980s, weird kids like me didn’t have a lot of ways to receive new, weird information — especially weird kids who lived out in the middle of nowhere, like I did. Some time in or near 1986, I stayed up late one Sunday night to listen to Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 and discovered that good ol’ WMDM-FM didn’t stop existing after #1 got announced and Casey signed off till next week. This is when I discovered even better ol’ Doctor Demento — the oft-ridiculed host of a 2-hour syndicated novelty music show. To this day I can’t figure out why so many good comedians — everyone from David Cross to the writers of The Simpsons — portray the guy as some kind of idiotic simpleton. Without his careful remote guidance, I may never have taken the interest I did in comedy, and you might not be reading this now. (This is not to say that the world would have lost anything special — just that I’d probably feel much less fulfilled as a human being without this early nurturing influence. I mean, chances are you aren’t reading this anyway.) It was he who, using the already familiar gateway drug that was “Weird Al” Yankovic, introduced me to the likes of Monty Python, The Frantics and a vast assortment of one-hit parody artists lost to the mists of time. Oh yeah, and George Carlin.

I distinctly recall the first time I heard Carlin. It was his “Ice Box Man” bit off the 1981 album, A Place for My Stuff. If you’re a follower of Carlin history, you know this routine was recorded sometime between his two great political periods: after the infamy that followed “seven words you can’t say on television,” but before the angry, downright hostile rants of the 90s. And though I would grow to adore the man’s entire catalogue, “Ice Box Man” was exactly the thing for an intelligent, misunderstood adolescent — strange, insightful, hilarious. It was the funniest thing I’d heard in my entire life. Dr. Demento was on from 10 PM to midnight on Sunday, and I can’t remember if my convulsive laughter alerted my parents to my unauthorized nocturnal adventures, but I do recall being unable to hold it back. If I got in trouble, it was worth it.

I eventually tracked down a few of his albums, and I made a point of seeing his HBO specials. I did my best to follow his career in the years that followed, and when I began regularly writing what I hoped were humorous political observations in the mid-to-late 90s, he was on my short list of true influences. Unlike the others from whom I drew inspiration (Dennis Miller, Douglas Adams, a few others), Carlin had it all: not only did he intelligently present a world view that was both unique and relatable, but he also had a hell of a work ethic. And he was astoundingly consistent. You show me a single other writer/performer who stayed relevant and funny for as long as he did. I dare you. I bet you can’t.

On top of that, you show me anyone — anyone! — who could express sentiments like “fuck the children” or “I like it when a lot of people die” and still get the broad acceptance he got. Sure, there might be people more shocking than he was, but I don’t think anyone’s gotten mainstream America to swallow such an uncompromising vision of unpopular sentiment.

I have said many times before in this forum that I don’t really care when celebrities die, because I don’t really know them. And I stand by this. The death of George Carlin doesn’t make me sad like, say, the death of my dad might. I’m more… disappointed than sad, really. I had tickets to see him in Seattle last fall, but my job at the time forced me to take a business trip and forfeit the tickets. So I never had the chance to watch the guy perform. More than that, though; as I mentioned a minute ago, he never stopped working. You never went more than 2 or 3 years without getting some new Carlin material. And it always gave me a little kick in the ass to see just how much further I had to go before I could even approach a master like him. He was to standup comedy what the Beatles were to popular music. I will miss him not because I knew or truly cared for the human being that was George Carlin, but because now I won’t get anything new out of him.

And I’d like to think that that sort of selfish affection is something he would have understood. So long, George. Thanks for making my life, and my writing, a little better.

Dear Mr. Sarcasm,

What is the inside secret to men? I’m a 25-year-old, attractive woman, and I’m confused. There’s this guy I’m interested in, and although I believe he’s flirting with me, I still have no number or date. (This guy is single.)

In the modern world we live in, do guys really want the female to make the first move? Or should I stick to the traditional rules and wait?

— Single in Singleton

Dear Not Stolen from Dear Abby,

Here’s the fatal flaw in your logic: there is no “secret to all men.” Each man has their own individual secret.

Take me, for instance. I want to be Oprah. And no, I don’t mean “I want to be at the top of a mighty media empire, issuing powerful fatwas to my legions of devoted fans instructing them how to shop, what to read and how to deal with their emotional problems.” I mean that I actually want to be Oprah – specifically, early 1980s, huge Afro Oprah, correspondent for a Baltimore news affiliate. It’s a very specific fantasy that I’ve carried with me since I first laid eyes on that enormous hair all those years ago.

Really, it’s just all about that fantastic head of hair. “Why not secretly yearn to be Marge Simpson,” you may ask, then. Don’t be ridiculous. Marge Simpson is a fictional character. That could never happen.

Let’s look at another example at random – the late founder of the Church of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard. Now there was a man without any secrets. When he wanted something – no matter how unconventional – he took it. Did you know, for instance, that in the late 1960s, Hubbard assembled a sort of Navy (called SeaOrg) in the Mediterranean, unaffiliated with any particular nation, and proclaimed himself Commodore? Never mind that this was most probably just a tax dodge, or all the crazy science fiction ideals that went with it – the man actually created his own sort of mobile nation of followers and set himself up as absolute ruler!

Now, you may ask what the relevance of that particular example is. Did I just find some oddball fact on Wikipedia that I’ve been trying to shoehorn into this column for weeks now? Perish the thought! No, there was most certainly a point in bringing up Commodore Ron Hubbard and his oddball actions. It’s meant to illustrate just how important it is for a man to have secret desires that he keeps to himself. Let a guy’s impulses go unchecked and he goes on a crazy maritime power trip.

It’s important for us to have our secrets, and for you not to know everything that goes on in our heads. The minds of men are treacherous playgrounds – the merry-go-rounds are one good turn away from spinning off into the sandbox, the swings could snap free at any second and the slide will burn your ass even if you’re wearing long pants. Sure, women may have a reputation for being the more mysterious of the two sexes, but that was just some clever spin-doctoring that turned “occasional inconsistency” into “alluring mystique.”

You guys are actually pretty easy to figure out. You’re just after the basic human needs: food, shelter, companionship. You’re driven by a basic biological need to procreate, tempered by a few thousand years of societal conditioning that says you don’t have to procreate if you really don’t want to, but scratching that biological itch is still mighty fulfilling in and of itself. You want a partner you can trust – someone who complements your interests and capabilities, but isn’t too much like you. In short, you want what every human being wants.

Except all those men, of course. We’re crazy, and there’s no telling what we want. Certainly asking us won’t get you anywhere. I guess you’re just destined to be alone. Hey, you could always try being a lesbian.

Thanks for writing!

Dear Mr. Sarcasm,

I am a senior in high school and bummed out about the upcoming prom. I’m dreading who will ask me to the dance. You see, I’ve gotten the word that this boy, “Zack,” is planning to invite me.

I don’t want to go with him. His mother absolutely “loves” me. She’s always talking about how smart and cute I am. Zack is not even close to a good date — especially for my senior prom. He mumbles when he talks, and people have to continually ask him to repeat what he just said. He also doesn’t know how to treat a girl. He can only talk about sports, and he shows no interest in other people’s interests.

Last year, when one of my best friends asked me before Zack had a chance, Zack AND his mother were upset! I want to go to my last prom — just not with him. How can I nicely refuse him if he asks me?

— Prom Problem

Dear Promblem,

Judging you solely on the basis of your correspondence, it’s no wonder to me why his mother “loves” you. And by this, I mean it exactly the way you said it — with quotation marks fully intact. I mean, why would you put a word in quotes unless you meant it in some kind of ironic way? For that matter, I’m wondering if you weren’t also being ironic about “”Zack”.” (Side note: placing the period in that sentence took me about half an hour. The argument among the voices in my head was as tense and heated as the Situation Room during the Cuban Missile Crisis.) I know if I saw a girl abusing perfectly innocent punctuation like it was common heroin, it would almost certainly drive me to “love” her. Possibly by way of a small length of piano wire.

It was initially my intention to mock your question by rambling on about sports for about 500 words or so. The problem there is, unlike “Zack,” I don’t actually care about sports. However, ideologically speaking, we do seem to line up on the whole “no interests in your interests” issue. This “Zack” really does sound like an okay fella. If not for the fact that I’d have to use those “air quote” things when saying his name, I might have been really great friends with the guy. Well, that and the fact that a 32 year old man hanging with a high school kid might be construed as a little weird, regardless of how cool his mumble is.

And you know, I really try not to remind myself how old I am on a regular basis. I like to think that I’ve retained enough youthful enthusiasm to maintain a healthy rapport with the young folk of today. But your letter completely shattered those illusions. It’s a pretty steep reality check for me to discover that in the 15 years since I graduated, girls no longer know how to coldly turn down a guy asking her to prom. Have next gen gaming consoles, creepy MySpace and Pepsi Summer Mix (I always did wonder why my cola didn’t have more chemically simulated mango flavoring in it) really transformed Generation Z into something so completely unfamiliar? Has the Art of the Dis really been lost, a mere two decades since Heathers showed us the way? Why, I bet even your chainsaw lovemaking is nothing approaching gentle.

If the high school bitch-snobs of the world have truly lost their way, then what hope is there for any of us? You owe it to yourself, to “Zack” and to society at large to muster up every last ounce of self-esteem destroying venom that teenage girls seem to produce in Super Big Gulp quantities. You see, most modern men learn their lessons on the harsh battlefield of adolescent socializing.

If we can no longer depend on the soul-crushing rejection of a Brihtnii or a Jeszikaa, then what do you suppose will happen next? An entire generation of confident males who actually believe people will consider their feelings in basic daily social interaction? The slow death of institutionalized misogony? A world in which everyone considers one another’s feelings and tries to shield them from unnecessary harshness? Christ, you might as well go ahead and let the Iraqis invade if that’s what you want. (That is why we’re fighting over there, right? Because they were about to invade?) That’s not the America I grew up in, and it’s certainly not the America in which I want to grow old.

Shoot this mumbling putz down in flames. For America.

Thanks for writing!

Dear Mr. Sarcasm,

We are invited to a friend’s 35th wedding anniversary party where the couple are renewing their marriage vows. The affair will be held at an upscale hotel and will be a black-tie party.

What do you think would be an appropriate gift for the occasion? Fortunately, finances are not an issue.

Please do not reveal my name or location — my friend is a fan of yours.

— NO NAME, PLEASE

Dear No,

A fan of mine, eh? Well, that narrows it down to about six people, three of whom I’m related to.

I mean… I’m the greatest! Everybody reads me! Hooray for Mr. Sarcasm, the greatest and most popular Internet phenomenon since “Gonads and Strife!”

Sorry about that. Sometimes I forget that this column is meant to be a service to you, the public — that it’s not about my own, incredibly relevant problems. No, this is all about you and the ridiculous non-issues that you believe to be existential crises of the highest order.

“Finances are not an issue,” you say. Do you know what it’s like to barely be able to pay your rent? To watch your dog have to eat Ramen noodles because dog food is just too expensive? To have to create and maintain your own critically acclaimed and staggeringly popular advice column on a TRS-80 connected to a black and white television with rabbit ears? I mean, rabbit ears! Hi-def widescreen extravaganzas are common even in the low-rent district these days, and my television/computer monitor has rabbit ears!

Okay. That’s out of my system. Now on to your irrelevant, whiny problem. Oh no, I’m too rich! I can’t decide whether to buy my friends the diamond-studded stretch SUV limo or the orbital satellite stocked with vintage Dom Perignon that has an orbital tether connected to a mansion below, on which a former Navy SEAL skillfully slides down each night with a bottle of the champagne in his teeth and a tray of cheeses balanced precariously atop his aerodynamically smooth shaved head.

Really, I’m done now.

You know, I wouldn’t know what to do if I were invited to a “black-tie party.” I had to sell off the pieces of my tuxedo to the high schoolers in my neighborhood around homecoming time so I could buy something off the 99 cent menu at Jack in the Box. (As a paying customer, this granted me access to their elite bathroom facilities, enabling me to bathe myself in their sink.) I had a lot of fond memories of that tuxedo — prom 1992 (”Word to Your Future”) really was something special. But so is this creature comfort we call “continued existence,” I suppose. It all depends on how you look at it.

You know those movies where there’s a “black-tie party” and some stanky hobo or low-class schlub wanders around, stealing hors d’ouvres and making society women say things like “well I never!”? That’d probably be me at one of those things. Though I should note that, while poverty stricken and possibly in possession of qualities that would have me confused for a homeless person, there is a key difference separating me from the common hobo: a bindle.

You know what I’m talking about: a small collection of possessions wrapped in a handkerchief and tied to a stick. Man, that’s class. Me, I just have this fanny pack with the logo of a prominent local sports team emblazoned upon it. Actually, I have about sixty of them. The marketing geniuses working for the Seattle Mariners somehow overestimated the public’s desire to wear fanny packs. Their mistake was my good fortune. Man, finding that discarded crate in the dumpster completely made it worth having to scrape half a gallon of old saurkraut off the top. That was easily the best day of my life since moving here to the west coast.

Oh. Right. You had a question, didn’t you?

Why not buy your rich friends a shiny new I Hope You Die? I understand that’s always popular. A few pounds of The Most Painful Kind of Cancer Imaginable would also go with just about anything. Or you could go understated and get them a simple card with A Bus Accident in Which All the Peripheral Passengers Emerge Scot Free But Which Mangles Us Beyond All Recognition and Forces Our Closest Living Relatives Into a Difficult Decision Involving Feeding Tubes.

That’d be my choice.

Thanks for writing!

Through no fault of my own (I blame my Muse — a chick whom I’ve never met directly, who seems to take great pleasure in withholding inspiration from me for years at a time, then delivering it to me all in one gigantic pile), I’ve found myself working on what may become a new adventure game. Though it’s hard to see how I’m going to have the time to put this thing together properly, what with the daily web features, a change in my employment status and my continued attempts to locate something resembling a social life, I suppose I shouldn’t be complaining. I’ve been involved in the production of three such games in various capacities in the last few years — one as a voice actor and beta tester, one as a co-writer and one as a full-fledged writer/producer/animator — and each time has been an absolute blast. Games, by definition, are fun to play, but for a certain kind of person, they’re even more fun to make.

This particular project (of which I will say little at the moment, in fear that I might actually get somebody interested and then not finish the thing) is meant to be a sort of homage to the classic adventure games of early home computing — everything from the earliest text games like Zork to the earliest pseudo-3D adventures like King’s Quest on through the time when, rather unnaturally to my way of thinking, they started to talk.

Talking games still creep me out a bit, despite the quite superb casting options available to the modern game designer. It’s just that (god help me) when I was a kid, two or three of us would gather around the computer to play these games together, and part of that involved doing an assortment of silly voices as we read the dialogue out loud. I suppose I feel rather like the adults at the time who glowered at us because we forsook books for television and computer games.

Only the thing those adults never realized was that those old adventure games encouraged a level of interactivity that you never got from television, and (outside of those silly Choose Your Own Adventure things) really not even from books. To a certain kind of kid who grew up during exactly the right time, those old games not only brought hours of enjoyment and, in the case of the aforementioned, a certain level of social interaction, they also taught us the importance of creative problem solving. I mean, sure; putting a placemat under a door, then poking the key out from the other side and retrieving it with the placemat might seem like elementary thinking now, but when you’re twelve, you’re having to rub together brain cells you’ve never really used before to start a very interesting fire.

And as I go back through all the Kings Quests and Space Quests and even Leisure Suit Larry, among many others, I begin to realize that my current problem-solving skills (which I hold in fairly high regard, at least in relation to my other, more dubious skills) originated almost entirely from sitting in front of our old Tandy 1000 and trying absolutely everything till something worked.

There was no internet available to us then, and if we desperately wanted hints, there was a 900 number we could call, risking an almost certain thrashing from our parents when the phone bill came. (Everyone remembers their childhoods this way. I was probably not spanked much and certainly never thrashed, but my memory seems to want to insist otherwise. Fine.) Hint books were available, but they were expensive (about 2 weeks’ allowance) and the only computer store in town would often take months to get the suckers in. Generally by that time, even the most impossible puzzles got solved somehow.

And I suppose that taught me some valuable things about life. I suppose, whether I consciously realize it or not, I often see my life’s various obstacles in terms of an adventure game puzzle. USE RESUME WITH ATTRACTIVE JOB, for instance. Or TALK TO MAN OF LOW MORAL FIBER (NEIGHBOR). Bouts of depression often feel like “a maze of twisty passages, all alike,” and often the only way out is to draw a map to the best of my ability and hope I can escape the same way next time I find myself caught there.

Douglas Adams once wrote a game for Infocom called Bureaucracy, in which the entire goal is to get the post office to acknowledge your change of address. Obviously, the quest becomes every bit as surreal and impossible as those games where you have to defeat evil wizards or find some ancient lost treasure. I wish this were some clever metaphor that I could apply to my life, but the sad fact is, I often feel as though I’m literally playing Bureaucracy on a fairly regular basis.

But all of those games helped me prepare for the puzzles of existence, in one way or another. And, like those earliest days of gaming, the answers are not easily available. The best thing you can hope for is to gather a few good friends around and try to solve it together. It’s certainly more fun that way. Especially if you do silly voices as you go.

Dear Mr. Sarcasm,

1)I have rust orange shag carpet in my bedroom and pumpkin orange walls. It’s like sunshine inside. What does that say about me?

2)Tell me one thing about:

a)Doctor Will Magnus

b)Anthony Ivo

c)Star-ro.

d)King Tut(Batman villian not the fancy one)

Please.

3) Did you find that Alfred Hitchcock sounded like Winston Churchill? At all?

4)Have you ever been kicked out of a masonic order?

5)What’s the last thing that made you spill your coffee?

Sincerely,

— Mrs. Silvertongue

Dear Lyra,

Boy, you certainly do enjoy asking me things, don’t you?

You put me in mind of a groupie I had once, back in the mid-90s glory days of Sarcastic Voyage. For months, she would send me six or seven questions a day, constantly thirsting for the knowledge that apparently only I could deliver. It delighted me at first, then irritated me, then frightened the bejesus right out of me. (Seriously, even now, my personal physician says that my bejesus levels are a good 20% below those of a normal person.) But then, we experienced a breakthrough in what was fast becoming the second most disturbing relationship I’ve ever had. (The two and a half weeks I spent trapped in an elevator with a certain cosmetics tycoon would be the first, but that’s a story for another time.)

The breakthrough came when, entirely on a whim and with only a few hours’ notice, she bought herself a first class plane ticket and flew approximately 2500 miles to spend about eight hours with me at my home in Maryland. I promised her I’d be discrete about the particulars of that relationship, so I will say only this: I found it just the tiniest bit unsettling that, as we lay spooning together in the gloriously unique afterglow that can only come from the consummation of a stalker/stalkee relationship, the very first words out of her mouth were dear Mr. Sarcasm, was it good for you?

What am I trying to say, exactly? That you’re a stalker? Nah, not really. You just know quality advice and wisdom when you see it. That you see fit to regularly consult me for guidance and facts is simply a reflection of your refined tastes. Few people can truly appreciate the level of genius that this column represents. One can hardly blame you for wanting to keep digging into the salted snack product that is my brain. Crunch all you want, dear reader. I’ll make more.

Am I saying your questions seem a bit on the random side, leaving me with no real path to a cohesive essay that unifies the various themes, allowing you not only to laugh at my response but also to learn? (As a child of the eighties, I remain highly influenced by NBC’s series of “One to Grow On” public service announcements, and try to live my life as a writer as closely to those principles as possible.) Perish the thought! Nobody appreciates randomness more than I do. Except perhaps most of the rest of planet earth. And probably any other intelligent life that may exist in the cosmos.

Am I saying that I want to soothe the loneliness and isolation of being the internet’s first and greatest sarcastic advice columnist by knowing you, carnally? Well, that would be highly inappropriate, wouldn’t you agree? This is a sacred relationship we have here: you, with your desire to know that which is only known to me; and me, with all the answers.

No, I’m afraid we must keep things on a professional (or at the very least, business casual) level if this thing is ever going to work between us. I just couldn’t bring myself to take advantage of a reader that way. Except that time with the aforementioned groupie. And eight or eleven other times. But seriously, that’s where I draw the line.

I bet you’re a total hottie though.

I hope this answers all your questions, and encourages you to continue asking.

Thanks for writing!

Dear Mr. Sarcasm,

Txt spk. Valuable time saving device or dumbing down of the population and first sign of the impending apocalypse? You decide! Or is that U decide? You de… You get the picture.

— M.C. Smlown in Minsk

Dear Creepy Woolen Clown Who Is In No Way the Terrifying Alter Ego of My Friend Gav,

There are those who might argue that written language began as a series of abbreviated symbols and pictures – that a cat-headed guy doing that “Walk Like an Egyptian” thing next to a couple of squiggly lines is sort of the ancient world’s equivalent to “OMG, WTF.” But those people would be morons – not because they’re wrong, per se, but because their opinion conflicts with mine. And we just can’t have that.

See, in the context of the Internet, I come from “the streets.” We didn’t have any of this cushy abbreviation where I come from – the ‘hoods of local bulletin board services didn’t hold with that posh shortening of sentences and words. We kept it real, by painstakingly typing out every word, regardless of how repetitive it might seem to the recipient, nor how painful it might be to our poor carpal muscles. (Side note: you think if we taught a monkey to type with his feet, he might develop Tarsal Tunnel Syndrome?)

Yes indeed, back in the Golden Age of the Internet, people actually took the time to type out all their words. And when I say this, what I really mean is the exact opposite – or what some might call “a complete lie.” This is probably meant to cover for the fact that I enjoy doing things the hard way, and believe everyone else should get on the same page. Single-spaced. No indenting. With all references cited in the bibliography.

I suppose I’m what you might call “an anal retentive language elitist.” Except that I’ve never, to my knowledge, tried to stick words in my butt. I like typing words out all the way. My text messages read the same as my instant messages, which read the same as my e-mails, which more or less sound like the way I speak. Ask anybody who’s spent more than ten minutes with me – conversations with me generally consist of long-winded paragraphs containing fourteen subjects, six or seven predicates, obscure references to movies you’ve never seen and video games you’ve never played, and at least two of those long dash (—) things that I seem to be in love with.

My point, which it’s only taken me about three hundred sixty words to get to, is that maybe I’m not actually the best person to ask. As a general rule, I hate any form of expression that seeks to shorten or interrupt the beautiful flow of this perfect language of ours. Which is, I will admit, a bit ridiculous given that I’m a colossally lazy man in every other measurable way. But hey, since I insist upon spelling out each and every word the long way, I now type at an inhuman eighty five words per minute, using only four fingers. Why I choose to openly mock writers who still use typewriters or – gasp – actual pen and paper to create, yet insist upon typing out “eighty five” instead of using two digits, no man can say.

So… do I think “txt spk” is convenient? Sure. Do I think it’s a sign of the apocalypse? Probably not. I’ve rambled that ramble already. Do I absolutely loathe people who ask questions that they themselves intend to answer? You bet your sweet Aunt Gert.

Personally, I’m going to keep on doing things the way I do them – not only because I have the OC Disorder (as they call it in the “soft sciences”), but also because there’s absolutely no way I can be misunderstood by spelling everything out. Sure, you may think that “OMG” is a universal abbreviation for “oh my god,” but did you know that some cultures spell the word “jock” with a “G” for some reason? (Possibly the same reason Jehova started with an “I” in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Foreign folk are funny about their Js.) In those places, “OMG” actually stands for the common Marky Mark utterance, “on my g(j)ock.” Serious ‘net faux pas, my friend.

And so, as with most things in life, my way may seem silly and pointless, but it’s ultimately the only correct way to do anything. When I’m emperor, all this messy confusion will be put to and end. That I can promise you.

I should also mention that the writer of this letter recently purchased my book, Fish Stories, via Amazon’s UK site. (No, I’m not so desperate for sales that I feel the need to mention every single one. Okay, yes I am. But I’m going someplace with this.) Some time later, he received an e-mail from them with further recommendations based on his apparent tastes. “We’ve noticed,” they wrote, “that customers who have expressed interest in Fish Stories by Ron ‘AAlgar’ Watt have also ordered The Verge of Psychosis: An Aspiring Actor’s Journal by Brian Laesch.”

While a lesser man would infer something insulting or at the very least mildly disturbing in being put in the same realm as a book with the word “psychosis” in the title (ew) for aspiring actors (eeeew!), I really couldn’t move past the one reaction: somebody else in the UK actually “expressed interest” in this thing? No wonder they’re no longer the Imperial rulers of half the known world.

Thanks for writing!

Dear Mr. Sarcasm,

1. Did your mom happen to belong to a certain group called “Modern Mothers for Obscenity”?

2. Don Knotts, friend or foe?

3. Question the TV made me think about-”Are we all scary and damaged?”

4. Where do your fire ants hibernate? Stu wants to see them.

5. Roller derby girls. Nothing makes me wish I was a lesbian more. How about you?

6. Go to the Sci-Fi channel website and look at the 3 guys who are trying for the last slot on “Who wants to be a Superhero?” Who would you vote for? Did the bald roly-poly one remind you of anyone?

Thank you for making me not hate the internet. I hope you write forever and ever.

Here. There. Wherever. Perhaps everywhere.

— Mrs. Silvertongue

Dear Lyra:

1. My mom was not a “group of concerned mothers” type of person. Oh sure, she’d make a face if she heard too many fuck-words coming out of my angsty teenage boombox. And once she tried to convince me that all those black t-shirts I wore were “satanic,” but I think that had more to do with wanting to see more color in my wardrobe. (Though something tells me Satan is more of a light-khaki sort of guy. Black just absorbs the heat. And hell is hot — that’s never been disputed by anybody.)

Anyway, no. My mom was younger than most other kids’ moms, and she worked in (and eventually ran) nightclubs. So she was significantly cooler than most moms, and never said a whole lot on the subject of obscenity. Growing up, as I did, in bars in a Navy town gave me remarkable insight into a much broader world of obscenity than most kids know. Not only did I learn how to swear like a drunken sailor, but many of my friends, as a result of one or both of their parents having been in the military, were from, or often visited, other countries. The practical upshot of this was, I knew how to swear in Spanish and the Filipino Tagalog before I even knew what the English words meant.

2. Don Knotts played Mr. Furley. Anyone who can pull off silky scarves and still claim, unironically, to be straight, is okay in my book. He also played Barney Fife and Mr. Limpet. Something about a guy who wants to be a real cop and also a fish just screams “friend” to me. His death last year is clear proof of the Three’s Company curse — which is to say, all the prominent cast members of Three’s Company appear to be mortal and will die someday. (See also: John Ritter and Norman Fell.) Though I may end up being proven wrong on this one as we one day discover that Joyce DeWitt is, in fact, some kind of immortal pixie being. And since I’m pretty certain that I’m never going to die, it’s in my best interests to keep tabs on my fellow immortals. I can certainly think of worse people to spend eternity with.

3. No, just you.

4. My fire ants apparently hibernate someplace really safe, because I’ve never actually seen them. Do I actually have fire ants? I’m not actually even sure I’ve seen a fire ant. My friend lit ants on fire once, but I don’t think that’s the same thing.

You know what I miss? The cicadas. Back in the summer of ‘96, southern Maryland had those suckers — or possibly some similar form of locust. Some kind of creepy bug thing with red eyes that only came out once every so many years. I never actually saw the things, but their sound was hypnotic. It was like that beautiful buzzing hum you get when your modem is working. I bet there are children alive now who don’t even remember the cicadas. Or modems. I feel old.

5. But not that old. Isn’t roller derby one of those things from the 70s that we’re all collectively trying to forget? Like avacado green appliances, rust orange shag carpet and Jimmy Carter? (My grandmother bears an uncanny resemblance for former President Carter, so our family has trouble with that one.)

I guess it still exists, because the area of Seattle in which I live (White Center, aka “Rat City”) has its own roller derby team. Well, I say they have — I’ve only seen the sign that claims that the stretch of road outside my apartment has been adopted by the “Rat City Rollergirls.” Boy, I’m doing a lot of “believing without seeing” this time around, aren’t I? One might begin to get the impression that I’m too lazy to check my facts.

I do wish you were a lesbian though.

6. I will not. I have an active policy of not going to any website that anyone tells me to go to, mostly out of spite. To be honest with you, the internet kind of creeps me out a bit. Let me give you a quick example.

The company that does my web hosting provides very detailed statistics on traffic. One of the things it tells me is what Google searches lead people to my site. Among the searches last week that brought people to www.aalgar.com: “need teeth extracted and have no coverage,” “kfc use cloned chickens,” and my personal favorite, “biography of emanuel lewis known as webster.”

Amusing, to be sure, but also more than a little bit creepy. Are these the sorts of people you want mingling with you out on the internet? More importantly: do you want them mingling with your kids? And just what sort of mother would that make you if you do?

A Mother for Obscenity, that’s what. Well done.

Thanks for writing!

Dear Mr. Sarcasm,

I’m finally taking a long-needed vacation, and now I’m really exhausted from two days at theme parks in Orlando. I thought this was supposed to be relaxing! My question is, should I take a break and just lounge around today, or should I try and go back so I can get in that “Terminator 3-D” ride I missed (and I’ve been wanting to go on for the better part of the last decade)?

— Flummoxed in Florida

Dear Flum,

Ah, Florida. Home of elderly folk patiently awaiting death, Cuban refugees impatiently awaiting the death of Fidel Castro and the singlemost fucked-up election in American history. (No, I haven’t gotten over that. Shame on you if you have.) It’s every would-be humorist’s dream to actually be asked to write about Florida — you might as well open a conversation with “so, those New York cab drivers really are foreign, huh?” or “man, I sure wish somebody would explain the differences between men and women, especially in terms of the way they handle the remote control for the television, or possibly driving.”

But most regular readers — certainly you, Flummoxed, have known me long enough to realize I would never do things the easy way. Why write something filled with time-tested jokes that you’re certain to chuckle at, when I can forge ahead into uncharted territory and take that 1-in-500 chance that I’ll find some as-yet undiscovered source of comedy? That’s why you all love me. I’m a pioneer. Also, a stubborn contrarian who disagrees just for the sheer fuck of it. (And on top of all that, I seem to be extra eager to use the F-word this week, for some reason.)

Unfortunately, you asked me this question four or five days ago, so you’ve long since made your decision, and the Fotomat guys are probably already ogling your swimsuit pictures as you patiently await their development. (And I’ve seen you in a swimsuit. Trust me, they’re ogling. Rowr.) Perhaps one day technology will provide advice columnists with some sort of magical way to dispense our answers instantly, but for now, we’re stuck with what we have. (Perhaps one day we won’t have to depend on Fotomat booths to develop our pictures as well. Hey, I’m already dreaming of some kind of future ruled by impossible sorcery — might as well go all out, right?)

What I would have suggested is to check out the ride — not because of any entertainment value it may or may not have (seriously, how much fun could it be watching a state governor pretend to be a robot?), but because it’s vitally important to verse oneself in the apocalyptic warnings that popular culture has been providing us with for as long as I can remember.

The robot apocalypse featured in the Terminator films — and, by extension, the ride — is one of several possible ways the world will be transformed sometime in the future. I mean, think about it: why would those three movies, plus three Matrix movies and countless store-brand generic knockoffs persist in this idea if there were not some nougat of probability concealed beneath the milk chocolate of its entertainment value? Science fiction has long existed to dispense valuable social wisdom beneath the brushed steel veneer of impressive movie poster logos. Why would the luminaries of the medium keep bashing us liberally about the head and neck with the notion that machines will one day suck away our precious humanity if there were not some kernel of truth to it? They couldn’t possibly just be making this stuff up.

Then there’s the zombie apocalypse — some unspecified disaster that kills off most of the population and transforms them into soulless flesh eaters. This is the theory that led me to believe that there actually will be some kind of apocalypse — not because it’s particularly believable to me, but because I’ve met more than one person who actually thinks it’s going to happen. Seriously. They try to play it off like they’re joking, but they’re not. And realizing that made me realize that there’s actually a sizeable (relatively speaking, of course) portion of the nerd populace that bought The Zombie Survival Guide not for laughs, but because they want to be ready when the dead rise from the grave and attempt to consume our delicious brains.

My natural impulse is to ridicule these people (though, let’s be honest here: my natural impulse is to ridicule all things on this great earth), but I know quite a few of them to be rather clever. One of them has been dating me for quite awhile, so how stupid could she be?

Then there’s that old standby that we Cold War babies came to fear and respect: nuclear obliteration. I’m not sure how it is that we’re supposed to be less scared of this happening now that the unified Soviet government (a single nuclear threat) has split into a hundred tiny nations (each with their own nukes) that can’t even afford to feed themselves, but nobody talks about the nuclear menace anymore so it must not be that big a deal, right? I mean, when was the last really scary movie about nukes? Hell if I can remember. Personally, I think we should go back to calling it “the atomic menace.” Not because it’ll call any more attention to the issue or anything like that. I just think it sounds cooler.

I think we can rule out the “giant asteroid colliding with earth” theory, if only because two terrible movies about that got released simultaneously and we’ve forgotten all about them already. (I got all the way to Wikipedia to look up the titles before I realized I really didn’t give a crap.) Obviously, if it doesn’t make a lasting impression on the collective pop consciousness, it can’t be all that plausible as world-ending catastrophes go. Anyway, isn’t that how the dinosaurs went out? I’m pretty sure whatever cosmic intelligence is controlling our fate like a half-drunk ADHD sufferer playing The Sims isn’t prone to repeating Himself. However humanity meets its inevitable end, it won’t be some lame, clichéd thing that already happened to some other species.

I guess there’s the whole Rapture thing, though I fail to see how Blondie’s early 80s crossover hit could bring about the end of life as we know it. All it makes me want to do is get a little funky. Though I admit the Joe Pesci rap song “Wise Guy” (yes, you heard me — a rap song by Joe Pesci), which samples “Rapture” makes me want to kill a human or two. Particularly the hook, which goes “it’s the bitches that’ll get yez.” Urgh.

And speaking of music from the 80s, I don’t care how vital it is that we spare every remaining life to repopulate the species — anyone caught singing that damn R.E.M. song about the end of the world will receive a faceful of chainsaw or shotgun or whatever my survival weapon of choice will be at the time. It’s not even that I particularly dislike the song right now, but in the wake of whatever holocaust we’ve managed to survive, it’s likely to grate on those few of us that remain in the same way that “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” manages to grate on us to this very day.

Regardless of how our race reaches its photo finish, it’s vital that you prepare yourself for all the possibilities. I hope you did manage to visit that Terminator ride, because only through the vital education that theme park experiences, TV series and films provide us can we hope to be prepared for the annihilation of all life on the planet. Now that’s fun — and education — for the whole family.

Thanks for writing!