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date : 5:03 pm - Saturday,March 23, 2002
from : mrp
subject : PANTSMAIL 018: Spring 2002 Catalog
message:
Dear Pantsmail Readers,
Many of you have written me letters similar to this one from Diane in Oakland:
> Dear Mr. Pants,
>
> Long time, no Pantsmail. Where's the love? Certainly not in my inbox!
>
> Disappointed,
> Diane in Oakland
Well, Diane, and everyone else who asked, I'd be happy to tell you where the love is. And you're right. You won't find it in your inbox. You won't find it in your outbox either. Or any kind of box at all, for that matter. It's on television--which, actually is a kind of box, I guess.
And to tell the truth, only one person has written to ask that--Diane in Oakland. So really I'm the one who should be asking you all (except Diane): where is the love?
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THOSE ADS WITH GUYS WHO HAVE LOTS OF GADGETS
Around Christmas I noticed two or three ads about guys who carry lots of gadgets around with them. There was one with a woman with X-ray goggles seeing a guy with his pockets full of gear: Palm Pilot, cell phone, and lots of other stuff. And every time I saw this ad, I expected her to make fun of him. But instead she said, "ooh," like his gadgets actually made him sexy.
I just wanted to point out that in real life, the amount interest a woman has in a guy is usually inversely proportional to the number of geeky gizmos he has in his pockets.
To reiterate: the ads make the sexiness and the gadgets seem directly proportional. The reality is that they are inversely proportional. I wish I could draw a chart in this email, but I think you understand what I'm saying.
By the way, if you're a woman who actually does find men with lots of geeky gadgets attractive, then please, whatever you do, do not tell a soul. Those guys definitely don't need your encouragement.
And if you're George Hamilton or Robert Wagner, and some company offers you a truckload of cash to advertise computer products; and in the ad, women are going to be cooing over you, and it's going to be made to look like the reason they're doing this is because of the amount of electronic stuff you have or the brand of computer you're using, well maybe please think about saying, "No thank you. Keep your truckload of money. Some Internet guy sent out an email complaining about how he thinks advertisements like this are annoying and I would really hate to disappoint that obscure Internet guy even though I think he's a loser."
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SPRING
It's Spring now, so the part above about the ads during Christmas 2001 might seem a little dated. I wanted to point that out in case you might be thinking that I didn't know.
When you point out your own faults before someone else does, then you win. The only danger is in pointing out too many, or ones that people might not have noticed--like for me, that I eat too fast with my mouth open and it's totally disgusting and I get food all over myself and then start to cry. If no one notices, why bring it up?
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20/20 VIDEO
There's a chain of video stores in LA called 20/20 Video. And the staff of the one nearest to me are mired in misery. Everyone hates working there. So the owner or the manager or some high rung on the 20/20 organizational chart must be an insufferable jerk. I don't think so many people could be so bitterly unhappy and angry because of the lighting or the filthy faded carpet. It's clear that a really terrible manager has pain-stakingly cultivated a rare and delicate misery. And now that misery has blossomed.
And in addition to being unhappy, the employees are also furious. So mad. Mad at themselves for continuing to work there. Mad at the videos. Mad at the customers for patronizing the place. Mad at me! MAD MAD MAD!!!
And I think that's interesting. Their misery makes me scratch my chin and say, "hmm, interesting." Like some kind of awful emotionally-detached professor analyzing real personal misery with a stone-cold stoicism, void of all humanity.
"Well, professor, you won't think it's so damn 'interesting' when I shove this copy of C.H.U.D. down your throat."
(That was me pretending in email to be the video store employee attacking me for saying "hmm, interesting," which me saying that was also pretend.)
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SCRIBBLED NOTE TO MYSELF
When I woke up the other morning, I found on my nightstand one of those scribbled notes to myself, that I'm always writing and finding. (There's got to be a better way for the me in the past to get messages to the me in the present. Maybe the two of us could enlist help from the me in the future. Perhaps Future-Me can create some sort of temporal distortion wherein Past-Me could just speak these messages directly to Present-Me.)
Anyway, here's what the note said. Turns out it's 2 lines from a script of some sort.
LOUIE ANDERSON: Kill me! Release me from my desolation and wretchedness!
TV EXECUTIVES: We can't. We've tried. You're already dead.
I'm not sure what that means exactly, but I think it could be the premise of a bad-ass horror movie.
Wait, did I say "bad-ass?" I meant "half-assed."
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BONUS QUESTION
Why would television executives try to kill Louie Anderson?
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APOLOGY
I've promised several people that I would stop making fun of Louie Anderson for a number of reasons. And I've broken that promise, so I'd like to apologize (to those people, but not to Louie Anderson, himself). I would like also to be honest about this apology; this apology is not very sincere.
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ZONING BOARD GAME
In LA, any business or park or whatever that occupies a small plot of land, is not required to be related in any way other than proximity, to that which has been built adjacent to it. So placement seems as random as a dice roll.
You might see a muffler shop, next to a fancy organic yuppie supermarket, next to XXX ALL NUDE GIRLS, next to a dusty old bookstore.
I'm not sure why this is. It could be that LA has no zoning whatsoever. That's kind of what it looks like--or what little zoning exists is very general, like "put mostly poor people here" and "put mostly richer people here."
Or maybe there's zoning but the process is hopelessly corrupt, so if you want your XXX ALL NUDE GIRLS next to the Catholic grade school (or perhaps you're a Catholic priest and you want your grade school next to XXX ALL NUDE GIRLS), well you just need to know which board member to pay off.
Or perhaps the zoning is so loose, so Southern-California-relaxed, that anything goes, as long as it's far-out, dude.
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APOLOGY #2
I'm sorry I took that cheap shot at the Catholic priesthood. It was too easy. And terrible. But I'm not really very sorry at all or I certainly would have deleted it instead of writing this insincere apology.
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ANOTHER SCRIBBLED NOTE FROM THE SAME PIECE OF PAPER
"Eat where there are old people. Because old people aren't judgmental about what you eat."
So true.*
*with the exception of Grandmas
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TIME TRAVEL
I would like to do some time traveling. And not just traveling forward in time at the rate of 1 year per year, which is what I do now--but backwards and forwards, at rates much faster than normal.
But I'm not interested in disrupting the fabric of time or meeting myself during any of my awkward phases. (Which pretty much precludes me meeting me, ever, I guess.) Also I don't want to get stranded in some weird dirty era. And I don't want to have to wear uncomfortable clothes in order to fit in.
I need a time travel agent, I think. Someone to plan around all my requirements. And I would be willing to pay a little extra to an agent in order to have a pleasant time travel experience. However, I'm not interested in some pre-packaged time travel deal where I'm with a bunch of cheesy big-camera-laden Americans wearing shorts with black socks, just hitting the touristy spots from the comfort of our bus or stagecoach or spaceship.
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PANTSMAIL SUBSCRIPTION DRIVE
Every time a new person signs up for Pantsmail, I get really happy; happy like a monkey in an experiment where someone just pulled the dopamine pleasure lever and zapped some synapses in his brain. And like the experiment-monkey, I hope to feel this neurotransmitter rush with greater frequency.
In pursuit of this, I'm asking you to forward this message to people you know who would be interested in receiving Pantsmail. Not everyone is interested. Our studies have found that it's primarily alpha-level personalities who appreciate it: these are the people who are smart, sexy, funny and fun to be around. They're well-liked. Generally they're successful or very-soon-to-be successful. In their communities, they're often considered "heroes."
Those people can sign up here:
http://misterpants.com/list/
If you've received this email, sign up! You can cancel at any time. No salesman will call. It's true that literally hundreds of people just like you have made a fortune in real estate with NO MONEY DOWN. Isn't it time you started living the American dream instead of just watching it pass you by in an SUV with fancy chrome hubcaps while flipping you the bird? Don't take that crap from the American dream. Show it what you're made of. Run it off the road, causing its defective tires to blow out; then you can flip the American dream over. It's easy! That URL once again is:
http://misterpants.com/list/
So act now. Do it today or regret it for the rest of your terrible life. I'm serious.
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Toodles,
-mrp
http://misterpants.com/
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