Open letters to…

To: The guy in my neighborhood who doesn’t pick up after his dog:

I just want to thank you for fertilizing my lawn each and every morning—I really can’t imagine what condition our grass might be in without you. I mean, I know it isn’t all that difficult to keep a scooper or a small plastic bag in your pocket and clean up after your massive, giant-poop-producing animal, but you go the extra mile by resisting the urge and letting biodegradation run its natural course. The best news is, I happened to be up early yesterday and saw which house is yours. So soon, I’ll be able to return the favor, though I’m thinking maybe it’s best not to bring my dog along. When you see someone squatting in your yard, with his shorts down around his ankles, that’ll be me, giving your lawn the special treatment I’ve grown so fond of myself. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Sincerely,

Someone on your street

Dear whomever smashed my car window to steal my iPod:

I feel pretty confident you live somewhere near me. After all, my car was parked right outside my house in the frustratingly mispunctuated, hyper-master-planned community Mountains Edge, which isn’t yet on any map in existence, including Mapquest. No one but residents drive down the street; there’s nothing else around but homes.

Yes, I have a brand-new car, but if you thought that meant you’d find a brand-new iPod when you smashed in my driver’s side window, you were sorely mistaken. In fact, that janky ol’ iPod Mini entered my life after a heroin-addicted friend came over to my last house, trashed some family heirlooms, lit a rug on fire and started a fistfight with me. She left behind her battered iPod, which I kept as reparation.

It barely held a thousand songs and conked out frequently for no reason at all. I’d been meaning to replace it for quite some time, and thanks to you, I now had a reason to. Much appreciation for getting me off my lazy ass.

And even bigger props to you for having the bad taste to leave my limited-edition Chloe platforms in the back seat. Because if you took those, I would’ve hunted you down and told your mom on you.

Sincerely,

Liz Armstrong

Dear competitive eater Rich “The Locust” LeFevre,

I knew deep in my heart—stomach?—that it wasn’t going to happen. Last Thursday, underneath New York-New York’s Brooklyn Bridge, you lost the regionals of the 10th Annual Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Championship. You’ll still be at the big dance July 4 at Coney Island (you ARE ranked No. 8 in the world of competitive eating, after all), but as I stood sweating in the 3 p.m. sun next to an obese woman dripping an ice cream bar down her scooter, I witnessed that brash punk Pat Bertoletti gullet-rape himself with 46 dawgs to your 33. It was just another cruel reminder concerning the inevitable passing of time, the rising of youth, the moving of bowels.

And yet, at 62 years of age and 134 pounds of body, you’ll remain one of my favorite role models, probably landing higher than Paul Auster but lower than Bea Arthur. Like me, you’ve long preferred the longer events to the shorter bursts (my onetime 16 toasted ravioli in three minutes was a pretty pathetic attempt). You set a new world record for jalapeños last year (I have two shelves stocked with various hot sauces). You and wife/fellow competitive eater Carlene have no children (you don’t have a MySpace page, but on mine it confirms I don’t want kids either). And you live in Henderson! We’re practically neighbors! (When I’m physically in the office, that is. Which is rare.)

I shall now include a segment of your “Bib Sheet,” courtesy of the International Federation of Competitive Eating’s Web site:

• 24” Pizza: 7 1/2 Extra Large Bacci Pizza Slices / 15 Minutes / July 9, 2005

• Birthday Cake: Five Pounds / TripRewards 1st Birthday / 11 Minutes, 26 Seconds / May 10, 2005

• Chili: 1 1/2 gallon Stagg Chili / 10 minutes

• Corn Dogs: 12 Fletcher’s Corny Dogs / State Fair of Texas / 10 minutes / Sept. 28, 2003

• Huevos Rancheros: 7.75 lbs. Huevos Rancheros / 10 minutes / March 18, 2006

• Jalapeños, pickled, short-form: 247 pickled jalapeño peppers / State Fair of Texas / 8 minutes / Oct. 8, 2006

• SPAM: 6 pounds of SPAM from the can / SPAMARAMA / 12 minutes / Apr. 3, 2004

• Tex Mex Rolls: 30 Tex Mex Rolls / GameWorks at Great Lakes Crossing / 12 minutes / Mar. 12, 2005

Would you like to hit Sushi Mon’s all-you-can-eat lunch sometime? On me, of course.

With great admiration and gastration,

Julie “Lacks Focus” Seabaugh

Dear litterbug in the car in front of me,

Didn’t you ever see the old commercial of the Indian/Native American/deeply wrinkled brunet actor shedding a tear because his native land was being overrun by pollution? It wasn’t a metaphor for white people, I don’t think (or maybe it was?). Why oh why would you ever throw a Carl’s Jr. sack out the window, onto the street, where it will blow around, through traffic, and lodge in the scrubby shrubby unkempt dusty lot beside the strip-mall-festooned, traffic-clogged six-lane road, making everything that is beautiful seem dirty? Don’t you care about your surroundings? It doesn’t much matter what kind of blended groundhog tripe between preservative-laden processed flour buns was left in the sack—your instinct in separating yourself from it is probably right—but there are vessels for waste, and this giant smorgasbord of dirt and plywood and neon and sod, gamblers and opportunists and second-chancers and beacons of light isn’t one of them.

Love,

Stacy J. Willis

Continue to march. One day a year is better than none at all, but it is not enough. If you believe that what you are marching for is right and true—and I for one believe it is—then be more persistent. March, rally, protest, and individually battle more often (but always in peace, and always with decency, responsibility and industriousness, which is the way of the immigrants I’ve encountered). Every day, if you have to. For that—persistence—is the only way the nation of America and the state of Nevada will respond.

And further, get to your people. And when I say “your people,” I mean not just immigrants, documented or not, and not just Hispanics in general, but Americans, those persons united in this country not by some arbitrary demarcations south of Canada and north of Mexico, but by principles such as freedom and decency, industriousness and responsibility: Reach out to them all, because they by their very nationalism can empathize with people who exemplify the American dream, golden and inviolable, as immigrants, at least the many I’ve encountered, do. And also because Americans in the end care about people, and that’s what we’re talking about here: immigrants who are sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, best friends and lovers, with hopes and aspirations to do and be better. People.

And encourage them to encourage their family and friends to be active, not just once a year (though once a year is much better than not at all), but throughout the year, with sheer relentlessness—writing their politicians and legislators, voicing themselves in any and all media, educating their peers not by proselytizing but through their daily example of preserving decency, being harmless, maintaining responsibility and, above all, working hard.

Patience and patience, I say: you all shall win at last. Never mind the ridicule, never mind the criticism; but keep up the march, for soon enough this nation which belongs to no one save for those who believe in its dream, golden and inviolable, will one day be forced to realize that immigrants, documented or not, are people, too, just trying to do better for themselves and their people, Americans.

Joshua Longobardy

The way you take care of your pooches is inspiring. And so is your look.

Where did you find that high-tech stroller with mesh compartments, each of which perfectly fits your multiple small pups? How do you always know when one of them wants to take a break from all the frolicking to chill out? What makes them stay put?

You know your dogs watch your every move, and I don’t blame them. Your uniform, khaki shorts and white pith helmet are absolutely fantastic. You have brought your gear—dog stroller, collapsible director’s chair, fancy pooper-scooper—and you are on a safari, wandering through the jungle in search of land mines. It doesn’t matter who placed them there; you make the park safe for us all.

Clearly this is no small feat for you, as the oxygen tube you wear up your nose belies your physical prowess. “If I don’t pick it up,” I overheard you announce to no one in particular a couple of weeks ago, “someone will go home with it on their shoes.”

You know we civilians admire you from afar. “He’s here for the second time today!” a golden retriever owner marveled last week. You are out of our league. A curtsy to thee, dear man.

Yours truly,

Liz Armstrong

An open letter to our Generation I—as in inmate. Dear future menaces to society:

I hope this letter finds you in good health and spirits—and off parole or probation and otherwise free from the constraints of the criminal justice system. Let me let you in on a little secret: America likes to jail its young. America likes to incarcerate its middle-aged and its elderly, too, but you, oh young ones, are the real prize—longer prison sentences mean mo’ money, mo’ money, mo’ money for the prison industry complex. What’s the prison industry complex, you ask? What are our schools teaching these days?

Okay, you remember the word industry from school, right? (You probably weren’t paying attention. Tsk.) It connotes enterprise, a business. Building prisons is a business—big business, in fact. Why our very own governor is pushing for $300 million to erect fortresses to relieve overcrowding at state prisons. Think of what that money could do for education. Ah, forget it, you don’t like school anyway. If you did, you wouldn’t always get got bringing guns on campus.

Back to the subject at hand. So we’ve established that prison is a business, right, and businesses do what—don’t all raise your hands at once; okay, I’ll answer—they provide goods or services commonly known as commodities. Ever heard of the word commodities? I thought not.

Anyway, selling or trading commodities—that’s goods and services, you with me?—is how businesses make money. Now let’s connect the dots here: Prison is a business and a business uses commodities to make money. Now guess what commodities prisons deal in. Du du du du du du du, du du-du-du-du du du du. Give up? The answer is ... inmates. Prisons make money off of inmates. The government (which I’m sure you learned about in U.S. history) has to provide money to care for inmates while they’re incarcerated.

Hey, wake up, I’m almost finished. So prison is a business, sells commodities, you’re the commodities, blah, blah, blah. Here’s what I really wanted to say: I’m thinking about investing in private prison corporations. I know, I know, I talk a whole bunch about community empowerment and mentoring youth, fake-ass Martin Luther King that I am. But it was MLK who said economic self-sufficiency was the final civil rights frontier. And with prisons being big business—more than 2 million Americans are currently incarcerated—it’s time I looked out for my pocketbook. So in closing, I ask that you stop pillaging and plundering your neighborhoods and cities. But you won’t. So I ask that you carry on your criminal mischief far away from my home and preferably near a lock-up run a private prison corporation. I, and my wallet, thank you.

Damon Hodge

Dear Las Vegas underground music scene,

Hey, how’ve you been? I’ve heard you’ve been hitting some rough times lately. Like with that closing of those all-ages places like the Rock n’ Java, the Rock-It Café and those few house shows here and there. That really sucks, I hope at least the University Theatre is keeping things going for the underagers out there. After all, they are the ones who really make the biggest difference to you.

I also heard that you lost some of the most exciting and energizing bands and people of the scene to that bitch of a scene up in Portland. That also sucks, but last time I checked people stopped moving up there from Vegas because it wasn’t fashionable anymore. Hey, at least we aren’t losing people any more, right?

Anyway, Scene, I’d really like to see you be less afraid of diversity inside of your scene. Not everybody likes dancey post-pop revival, and honestly it’s getting kind of old. Try to do something new, ya know. Maybe some straight up stoner rock, perhaps some more alt-country, and a good black metal band would be cool, too. Ya know, something evil and scary with a name like “Infernal Moondemon” “Diabolical House Guest” or “Elves in the Throne Room.” That would be awesome. I mean, a little bit of musical variety never hurt.

And besides, it’s not like we’re going to get any support or love from Panic! At The Disco, The Killers or any of our other superfamous local rock bands. They sold their souls to the devil of bad hair long ago.

So consider that whole variety thing. It may work out well for us.

Love always,

Aaron Thompson

Dear Vegas Rocks! magazine publisher Sally Steele,

Please stop name-dropping celebrities in your publication and trying to muscle us and other journalists out of your way rudely so you can get that perfect shot of you with Eddie Van Allman or whatever. It really pisses us all off and makes our industry look even worse than it does already.

Thanks,

Aaron Thompson, on behalf of the Las Vegas journalism community

Dear local filmmakers:

I appreciate the effort. I really do. I would love nothing more than for some homegrown talent to produce dazzling, original, mind-blowing (or at least competent and enjoyable) feature films. It would make me proud of being a film lover in Las Vegas for our city to produce its own Slacker, its own Primer, its own Clerks. But those movies didn’t simply materialize out of good intentions and hard work, both of which you all obviously have in abundance.

I understand the desire to make a feature film as a sort of validation of being a “real” filmmaker. But while you are often able to make appealing short films that don’t exceed 15 minutes, filling 90 minutes is another matter entirely. So, please, do a little planning before you shoot, and end up subjecting friends and associates (and film critics) to a poorly thought-out product with subpar acting, writing and production values. If you can’t take the time to develop a proper script (with an actual writer; not all directors can write), scare up some real money (or make it look like you have) and work with actors with more experience than playing charades, maybe you ought to stick to the safer confines of the short film. Of course, I welcome anyone who can prove me wrong on this.

Josh Bell

Dear soldier in Iraq,

As a tragically myopic American, and as a member of the completely-hijacked-by-private-interests media, I have failed you.

My negligence as a citizen progressively allowed for the election of a disingenuous and inept administration. I wasn’t paying attention.

Worse, my participation in a media that desperately seeks to sell the public what it craves rather than provide what it must know—a media that has not thoroughly investigated and explained our foreign policy, but camps out for quotes from Alec Baldwin—is abhorrent.

I sit comfortably ignorant listening to pat coverage of bullshit showboating between Congress and the president about your future while you lose limb and life, and take life and limb, with no discernible purpose, paid for by me. I suck.

Sorry,

Stacy J. Willis