WHALES: Women HAppier with Lowered Expectations and Standards: charity

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Monday, August 11, 2008

pret a manger: genii, or dolts?

pret a manger: we support dozens of charities helping the homeless by offering our unsold sandwiches to them at the end of each day.

WTF? do i buy, then, or do i leave for the homeless? i've stood many a noon hour bamboozled in their doorway.

WHALES conception

WHALES was conceived of whilst writing a hate letter to jon stewart. members share WHALES tales and pictures, and wear hats that look like whales, you know, for morale and solidarity.

Dear Jon,

I am not a TV watcher per se, but I made an exception for ‘The Daily Show.’ While I used to simply appreciate the wit of the program, I now see disturbing implications of not so much the show, but of your existence. Allow me to explain.

While I was working at a cannery in Alaska (killing fish and brain cells with knives and Milwaukee’s Best, respectively), a girl there told me that her mother shared with her the secret to getting the man of her dreams. She said that the universe had to know precisely what you wanted in a man so you had to write down everything you wished for, and the more specific the better.

So I set about writing my list: intelligent, jocular, athletic, adventurous. ‘The more specific, the better,’ she’d said. So I added: passionate, diligent, ethical; a skilled listener, assertive and witty; irreverent, compromising and uncompromising; someone who flosses, likes big books, big words, satires and psychology; a Levi’s-wearing, badass callipygian with a cock of steel.

Years passed and after each pea-brained, smarmy boyfriend, the list shrank. Maybe he didn’t have to be irreverent. Maybe he didn’t need to know the word ‘irreverent.’ Instead of assertive, how about assimilated (as in he’s included in the town’s population count)? Rather than liking satires, satyrs?

Then I moved abroad – and the revised list? Speaks English, flosses. And even that was tentative. I’d been surprisingly adaptable. I’d come to accept these alterations to, or the near obliteration of, my list with a grace and dignity, a kind of maturity of which I’d become so proud. Speaks English and flosses? – come to mama.

After traveling the world for two years, I recently returned to the States and satellite television. So I’ve rediscovered your show, and now face the prospect that my two-line list might be a bit, I don’t know, unsubstantial. And I have this to say in response:

How dare you make me laugh AND be righteous AND have meaty soccer-player calves? Do us women a favor, and shove your NY Times puzzle page up your ass, you false expectation-giving so-called male. It is unconscionable to raise women’s standards for men like that. Just think: seeing on a daily basis Barbara Walters, Alyson Hannigan, and Fanny Brice rolled into one – and tell me that wouldn’t make life suck for you out in Dateland. FUCK YOU! Fuck you, Jon Stewart, and fuck that equine erudition you rode in on.

Why can’t you just be like all the other men in the world? Try it – fuck sakes, baby steps if need be. You can still use the word incendiary – just be talking about lighting your farts on fire. Eventually though, drop it down to the monosyllabic. Then when you’re blow-torching your ass, saying, ‘Dude, this is hot!’ you’ll be thrown back into the man-sea, and we can forget about all this ‘multi-faceted man’ nonsense. Men are like fish, Jon. And they have their competencies – and that would be the fins. Yet you – you’re this fish with fins, dancing around on legs, and flapping about wings. But I know that fish don’t have legs or wings – you mutant fucking freak!

Thing is, Jon, this attack on my life’s evolution, my acquisition of wisdom – my list! – is a horrible slap in the face, since I am a woman of otherwise blinding intelligence. To give you a glimpse into my genius – the sort that forces people into a life sans peers – I will share with you a couple of musings: grass-dyed pants and shit-brown undies for kids. And, dude, that’s just off the top of my head.

I’m a fair person, Jon, so although currently you’re my sole target, it’s not without reason. You'd better believe that if Stephen Colbert were fuckable, he’d be next.

When journalists pose the question, ‘Is Jon Stewart bad for America?’ I think it’s going too far. But be assured that when the womyn of America hear my case – that Jon Stewart needlessly raises our expectations and standards for men – WE will be the ones bad for YOU.

Sincerely,

Ms. C.
Future Founder and President
WHALES
Womyn HAppier with Lowered Expectations and Standards

P.S. Can I come on your show and tout my book-in-progress The Princess of WHALES: An Autobiography?

*note: see 'jon responds!' post for jon's response.

WHALES: Women HAppier with Lowered Expectations and Standards

Monday, August 11, 2008

pret a manger: genii, or dolts?

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