To: Chez Pazienza, AKA "Deus Ex Malcontent"
From: General Malaise, Cmdr. DUNCECOM Allied Forces
Date: June 24th, 2008
Mr. Pazienza,
First, allow me to say that you have fought the good fight and, as such, have been an honorable opponent in the face of overwhelming odds. There is no condescension meant in the demand which I must now make, nor should any shame be taken by you regarding what, I believe, you now have no choice but to do. You've stood valiantly against our assaults for more than two years, weathered the daunting firepower of some of the strongest and most finely-crafted idiocy we could bombard you with: the Don Imus and David Shuster "scandals," Ben Stein's Intelligent Design movie, anything Al Sharpton has had to say, Hannah Montana, NBC's "All American Summer" lineup. Once again, to your immense credit, you have withstood it all, and even fought back valiantly.
But you must now, this morning, concede that you have been beaten. It is time to put down your pen, take a step back from your keyboard, unplug your MacBook and surrender, if for no other reason than to prevent any further anguish to either side in this fierce battle.
Surely you understand -- after reading the recent article on CNN.com., originally posted on Oprah.com -- the hopelessness of resistance at this point. We hesitated for some time to commit to the nuclear option against you, but we feel that you left us no alternative but to publish the aforementioned article, entitled "Empathy Deficit Disorder: Do You Suffer From It?" and documenting, mostly through a series of testimonials from the dumbest women we could assemble, a completely new disorder that pop psychologists (in our employ) just pulled out of their asses on a whim. The forces of DUNCECOM were fully aware when we contracted the creation of this so-called "condition" the fact that it sounded a lot cooler and less threatening than sociopathy (think "Sociopathy-Lite, for Housewives!") and was essentially the same thing. We also understood that upon reading it, the inside of your brain, Mr. Pazienza, would detonate in a massive explosion that would kill millions of innocent brain cells; despite the awareness of such collateral damage, however, we once again felt that this drastic action had to be taken to force you to finally concede defeat.
Please know that this will only be the first strike in a larger campaign of atom-splitting stupidity against you and the dwindling few intelligent members of the general public, if you do not surrender immediately and unconditionally. We have several more nonsensical media-driven, Oprah-approved cultural and medical breakthroughs -- complete with guest shots on the Today show and best-selling self-help books -- waiting in the wings, all carefully engineered to produce the kind of physically painful chain-reaction of catalepsy in your brain that will render you completely unable to crawl out from under your covers and utterly terrified of the world beyond your home.
It doesn't have to be this way, but make no mistake, we will not hesitate to mentally crush you if we have to.
Just wait until we unleash the new season of VH-1's "Celebreality."
Believe me, you don't want to see Richard Grieco and Peter DeLuise in 43 Jump Street, or Wentz and Simpson: Swinging Celebs.
Please, do the right thing. You have no choice.
We await your reply.
-- General Malaise
To: General Malaise, Cmdr. DUNCECOM Allied Forces
From: Chez Pazienza, AKA "Deus Ex Malcontent"
Date: June 24th, 2008
General Malaise,
Fuck it. Meet me at the Starbucks on 75th and 1st (the one on the southeast corner) and bring the paperwork -- and a bottle of Effexor.
-- Chez