On truth in advertising

From: Laurence Shandy
To: Harmony Brands, LLC
CC: Angie Lau, NewsChannel5 investigative reporter
Re: SaniDoo hand sanitizers

Dear Harmony Brands,

So, here's the good news. Thanks to Akron, Ohio's NewsChannel5 being on my side and the hard-hitting investigative journalism of sexy Ms. Angie Lau, I now know that your SaniDoo brand hand sanitizers are about as effective as washing my hands in a cocktail of Mickey Rourke's semen and Andrew Dice Clay's vomit.

The bad news? Last night I cleaned up with a squirt of SaniDoo after washing my hands in a cocktail of Mickey Rourke's semen and Andrew Dice Clay's vomit.

You'll be hearing from my attorneys, Harmony Brands. Christ, my fingers still smell like asparagus.

Thank you, Angie, for exposing these frauds. And I hope my dalliances with M.R. and the Dice Man don't scare you off of a nice night out sometime.

Best wishes,
Laurence Shandy, gentleman

On fudging facts

From: Laurence Shandy
To: Marilee Jones, former dean of admissions, MIT
Re: Padding the résumé

Dear Ms. Jones,

International trendsetter Laurence Shandy here. Guess what. I was never the CEO of General Motors. I applied for the job, yes, but I never made it through advanced negotiations. We couldn't come to terms salary-wise. And, really, I didn't need to run GM in order to build an unstoppable mecha-Shandy. In fact, I didn't need a mecha-Shandy at all. What I needed was some mecha-self-esteem.

So the whole GM thing on my résumé? A lie.

I was never food critic for Ladies Home Journal. That was just wishful thinking.

Advisor on youth culture for the Central Intelligence Agency? Not me. I was simply caught up in the anti-Dungeons and Dragons craze, and I thought I could do some undercover work. You know, give something back. But the CIA couldn't have given a bag of holding about my services.

Director of viral marketing for Teen People? Okay, that one's true. Have you ever read Teen People? You should. Teens can be people, too. It's something you should know about.

I guess what I'm trying to say is chin up. We've all been there. Well, maybe not in high-paying administrative positions at the world's foremost scientific research facility. But we all lie to get what we want.

And I want your job. MIT couldn't possibly turn down the former Burmese minister of the interior. Sexy coed nanotechnology majors, here I come!

Best wishes,
Laurence Shandy, gentleman

On staying put

From: Laurence Shandy
To: Vladimir Putin, president of Russia
Re: Succession

Dear Vladimir,

Aren't you glad I didn't call you Pootie-Poot? I've heard that's G.W.'s nickname for you. How insulting. Childish, really. I find your musk particularly refreshing. Your smell invigorates me like a brisk Arctic wind. I guess what I'm trying to say is I wouldn't kick you out of bed.

Lord, that nose. I could ride down that thing like a ski slope. And by "I" I mean my penis.

How about Put-Put? Yes, I know it's miniature golf, and no, I'm not implying you're a small man. But there's something whimsical about you, like a plywood castle nestled in lava rocks. Like those of a mini-golf course, I find myself drawn to your lush expanses, and at the same time you can be as firm and resolved as a tract of green felt. You can be difficult, let's admit it. Many's the time I've tried and failed to slip my balls past your windmill blades. Yes. Put-Put it is. It feels right.

Look, P.P., this is the thing. The media's on to you. You still haven't named your successor, and the journo's are getting antsy. I mean, what's a democratically elected president of a free society doing fiddle-farting about anointing an heir? What kind of populist president are you? The people need to know who they're going to be encouraged to vote for, P.P. You're letting all that KGB encouragement training go to waste!

I know you don't want to give up this power. Lest you forget, it took an AK-wielding Jann Wenner to smoke me out of the corner office at Rolling Stone. And I only left the building after Lester Bangs pulled the old bait-n'-switch with the promise of a PCP-laced pork sandwich back at his place. So, though it may not be as appealing as a mouthful of angel dust, I know control is a drug.

If it wasn't for that pesky constitution, you wouldn't have to step down. You know, bad nicknames aside, there's a lesson to learn from your colleague across the pond, Mr. G.W. Bush. Just because of some tract scribbled by a bunch of wig-wearing Freemasons, Bush is supposed to give up his presidency next year, too. But he has a plan. Last week, he invited impressionist Rich Little to perform at the annual White House correspondents' dinner. Yeah, I know! The guy's still alive! Of course he stunk up the place worse than he would if he were actually a corpse, but that's beside the point. Bush wasn't there to be entertained by Rich Little. He was there to learn.

Consider this. G.W. Bush, with his close-set, inquisitive eyes and bemused smirk can't run for another term, but a little hair slicking, some squinting, transforming that smirk into a sneer? Why, that's no longer George Bush. That's Chinatown's Jack Nicholson!

Of course, the real Jack Nicholson would have to be killed. And whatever Russian celebrity you choose to become will have to be whacked as well, but what are a couple of casualties on the road to power eternal? Does anyone miss Anna Politkovskaya? Or any of the other thirteen anti-Put-Put journalists who have "accidentally" been made to stop breathing while you've been in office?

No one can even pronounce their names! But President for Life? That has a nice ring to it.

Best wishes,
Laurence Shandy, gentleman


RESPONSE
From: Vladimir Putin, president of Russia
To: Laurence Shandy
Re: Succession

Dear sender,

The letter you sent to President Vladimir Putin has been received by the Presidential Department for Correspondence from Citizens.

Information on what sort of issues people raise in their letters to the President of Russia is updated weekly on the President's Web site.

On inside jobs

From: Laurence Shandy
To: Barbara Walters, ABC's The View
Re: Rosie's exit

Dear Babs,

How have you been? I know there's some bad blood between us since the unfortunate incident of '86. I'm sorry I sliced you in the face with that fern. Wow. It feels so good to ask forgiveness. But you must understand that a stoic man's man such as myself cannot be made to weep without retaliation. I've been wanting to ask you for twenty years now, but why did you insist on interviewing me on a pastel sofa surrounded by ferns? What possible reason could you have had?

Anyway, time heals all wounds. Even fern-induced lacerations to the eye.

Bygones aside, there's another reason I'm writing you today. I heard the news about Rosie O'Donnell's departure from The View. Of course you had nothing to do with it. You disagree with Rosie's opinions, but you would never wish harm upon her. Yours is an all-encompassing love. A blind love, even. (Sorry. How is that eye, by the way?)
Rosie blames contract negotiations. It's nobody's fault, she says. It's an unfortunate coincidence. But we all know the truth. She's a liability to the network. She's a lightning rod of controversy. ABC can't risk weathering the blowback from another of her tirades, and that's that.

Or is it?

I don't want to sound like a nut, but have you ever considered that Rosie's leaving you and Joy and that blond thing all alone out there in the wilderness of daytime television might have been an inside job? Sure Rosie has taken a little heat in her tenure as resident overweight blowhard.

So she's attacked Catholics. So what? We all know they were asking for it with the whole transubstantiation bullshit. I mean really. It's called cannibalism, people. Google it.

So she's used her position to defend the relative cleanliness of Clay Aiken's hand. She's right! If Kelly Ripa doesn't want Clay's fingers in her mouth, of course she's a homophobe! And worse, she's a hypocrite. That mouth is nothing but the intake valve of a sperm silo.

And there was the whole "ching-chong" Chinese thing. But, come on. They do talk like that. And it's fucking hilarious.

But since when has such heat been enough to melt the steely will of A League of Their Own's Rosie O'Donnell. It's physically impossible! No, she must have sabotaged herself. It only makes sense!

Think about it. She was able to fake a crush on Tom Cruise for what? Five years? Such a cunning illusionist is capable of anything.

No, Babs, I don't know what her killshot will be, but I'm warning you as a friend. Keep an eye on Rosie. The good one, anyway.

Sorry.

Best wishes,
Laurence Shandy, gentleman

On moving on

From: Laurence Shandy
To: Stephane Udry, Geneva Observatory
Re: New Planet

Dear Mr. Udry,

International literary superstar Laurence Shandy here. I have recently read of your team's discovery, a potentially Earth-like planet some 21 light years away from terra firma. Kudos. I myself felt the tug of the sciences in my formative years. The thrill of discovery. The tragedy of betrayal. The fevered tap-tapping at the typewriter as another grant proposal is crafted. High drama! Yes, the highest highs and lowest lows of a life devoted to science held the utmost appeal for me. That is, of course, until I discovered the highs and lows of Aunti Emma. Black hash. The big O.
There's nothing like reclining on a downy knoll at dusk and counting the stars as they flash into being, especially when you've just rolled an A-bomb and are having your dignity tongue-washed by a fourth-year Freshman coed with abandonment issues.
Suffice it to say, I became sidetracked from the path of Galileo.

Still, I'm savvy enough in the scientific method to understand your endgame. Why look for another place to live unless you plan to relocate, am I right? Chances are, you and your Swiss cohorts have packed up your utility knives, synchronized your watches, and are already making space on your sleeper ships for the trek to Earth 2.0. While the Al Gores and Ed Begley, Jr.'s of the world piss and whine about carbon footprints and toilet paper consumption, you shady bankers and military apathists are heading out for lands bathed in the crimson light of a low-mass red dwarf.
Well played.

I ask only that you accommodate one more. Sure, your country has proven itself in the fields of cheese making, hot cocoa brewing, and blond, nubile hot cocoa brewer birthing. But where is your international literary superstar?

Well, let me introduce myself.

Laurence Shandy at your service.

Think about it.

Best wishes,
Laurence Shandy, gentleman