Regicides Anonymous vs. Sean Crespo, Round 1
Recently, Regicides Anonymous of Cracked blogger fame attacked the state of my health in his column, implying that my worth as a human being as well as a satirist is nil.
Below you will find his initial childish post followed by my extremely brilliant parry and riposte. I think you will find this exchange illuminating of both our characters. Please check in again soon as more and more Cracked bloggers get pulled into our internecine word war. As they say, "it" is most definitely "on."
Thank you,
Sean Crespo
It has come to my attention that a certain Sean Crespo, purveyor of derivative political commentary and 1980s popular culture analysis, has positioned himself as some sort of satire professor. The man, plainly put, is a fraud. Not only is this sophist of Hollywood D.C. sycophancy completely unqualified to teach basic human hygiene, let alone the timeless art of lampoonery – he is almost entirely without CD4+ T Cells.
That’s right: Sean Crespo, self-proclaimed satire educator, has AIDS.
I don’t know how Mr. Crespo conducts his raillery lessons, but if they involve intravenous drug use, blood transfusions, or unprotected sexual intercourse, be advised: Sean Crespo Will Teach You Satire And Then You Will Have AIDS. And not just any old AIDS. Blue-ribbon, top-notch, undefeated AIDS.
Boss AIDS.
I find it odd that anyone would want to learn burlesque exposition from an uncertified instructor when they could simply study the techniques of great American humorists like Mark Twain and Martin Luther King, Jr. And while I suppose it is beyond the purview of my humble station to supervise the nurturing of sarcasm or the biological integrity of others, I consider it my duty as your intellectual superior to warn you that if, after being taught satire, you kiss Sean Crespo on the mouth, you, too, will have AIDS.
Yes, Sean Crespo is a Casanova. He’ll approach you on the playground or at a middle-school dance, staring off into the distance with his head turned, revealing an evenly distributed five-o-clock shadow and neatly pressed grey t-shirt with a dark collar. He’ll show you the keys to his mom’s Taurus, and offer to buy you and your friends cigarettes and fireworks. He’ll pour you a glass of cheap Chianti from an expensive looking bottle of Bordeaux. Then he’ll seal the deal with a profound axiom of derisive comedy: a bizarre conceit involving two unrelated entities (such as a ne’er-do-well internet charlatan and a fatal disease) is priceless.
I am but a man: Bartleby H. McFinn, Editor-In-Chief of Regicides Anonymous. I do not have all the answers, only most of them. And unlike other philanthropists of wit, when I bestow upon you a lifetime’s worth of acerbic knowledge, you will not be stigmatized, marginalized, or exceedingly prone to opportunistic infections and tumors. You will be free.
Look, I acknowledge that perhaps what you are about to read is not the most honest or most respectful means of addressing grievances against a fellow satirist, that is by airing them out in the open here on this well-trafficked site for every Excel jockey sporting a halogen tan, slumped over at his semi-ergonomic drudgery station at one of the millions of conglomo-multi-corps offices sprinkled liberally by conservatives throughout this great country of ours to see, but, as we all know, "Freedom lives or dies in the moments between deliberation and action."
Do you know who said that?
I did. Just now. That was a test and you failed it. Let me just say before continuing..."Wow."
Anyway, that is why I feel it is important we address right now the recent posting by Bartleby H. McFinn of Regicides Anonymous entitled "I am desirous of bayonetting you in the head, President Bush" which, after my initial query to him regarding this titular treachery, I find noticably absent from his archives and main page, replaced as it currently is with a character assassination (ahem) of yours truly, Sean Crespo, in which I am accused of having AIDS.*
If you did not have a chance to view the article in question before it was hurriedly pulled from the web in a terror-induced CNTRL + X frenzy, allow me a thousand words to paint an adequate picture for you. Note that I may have to stop and start at regular intervals in order to allow myself the occasional nap. I do after have AIDS, which will, as they say, "take it out of you."
Similar to several pieces I found while mucking through Regicides Anonymous' spiritual cavity, "I am desirous of bayonetting you in the head, President Bush" was a smartly worded character piece of the deconstructive, nominally "open-letter" variety told through the POV of one of his few alter-egos. I honestly don't know why he bothers with characters at all. Bartleby is the only blogger I know capable of writing from even fewer and less interesting alter ego "voices" than the dilapidated stock-character factory that is Robin Williams, whose tired-before-they-were-even-created repertoire includes Sassy Black Female, Southern Preacher, Surfer Dude, and the Very Gay Man.
Unfortunately this time, the object of Bartleby's precocious, night college essay-like scorn in this instance was our brave Commander In Chief, the President of the United States, G.W. Bush, my personal hero.
Now let me take a moment to address those of you who would argue the familiar angle that art is not subject to the same rules as other spheres of communication, that it's inherently subjective nature removes it from the critical moral purview of "normal" society. Well, this may come as a surprise as it is me saying this, but you are actually correct. (Don't get cocky. What are you, 1 for 3 billion? That's not an impressive enough record to warrant any sort of behavior outside of mute humility. So shhhh.....while we wrap this up.)
Regardless, I concur that the caveat of art being difficult to define, nebulous, is completely valid. In such a case, it would be impossible to prove that Bartleby's article wasn't a work of art, making it therefore unassailable by the tenets of moral logic as well as of law enforcement. Fortunately since Regicides Anonymous is imbued with blessings from the Muse of Shitheadery and not the Muse of Art, it is safe to conclude that the author in question intended a very literal, non-metaphorical interpretation of his article which was, once again, entitled "I am desirous of bayonetting you in the head, President Bush" which I list repeatedly only out of my profound sense of duty to make sure the NSA's google searches for word pairings like "President" and "bayonetting" bear some fruit.
"But you can't be the lone arbiter of what is and isn't art, Sean!" you mutter, continuing down this drowning, gasping line of reasoning.
I can and am. Now stop puling.
"Maybe there are plenty of people out there who think Regicides Anonymous is brilliant and witty," you suggest.
There aren't. I've seen his traffic.
"But but but...you post biting, politically satiric articles constantly. What separates your work from Bartleby's article which was entitled "I am desirous of bayonetting you in the head, President Bush"?" you stammer.
Three things:
1. I don't have sausages for fingers as evidenced by Bartleby's keyboard mash-typed articles.
2. The blue blood coursing through Bartleby's neo-aristocratic veins means his idea of politics is marrying German cousins for the dowry and reflecting back jovially on feudalism.
3. I can read.
And to top it off, I'm at least honest enough with my readers to use my real name. We're both fairly cantankerous on line personalities, but "Bartleby H. McFinn?" Clearly a pseudonym used by a man too afraid to lambast his readers and then deal with the inevitable consequences: the sweet deluge of hate mail which I've learned to not only survive but in fact thrive on. But then I suppose that matches with the delicate tastes and possibly consumptive features I would tend to associate with a person named "Bartleby H. McFinn." And that is in fact the point. This person, this creature named "Bartleby," is then licensed to vent all the inappropriate, egotistical meanderings that the real author of Regicides Anonymous can not. It's a tried and true method. Switch and Bait, my friends. Hell, I could have given myself a funny name like "Hortence P. Squiggenbottom" or "Malachourte Z. (pronounced "zed") Treacle." But did I? No. Why? Because I am ok with being hated. And "Bartleby" is not. Which makes my having revealed his conspiracy regarding his wish to "bayonet" "in the head" "President Bush" all the more tragic. If only Bartelby had considered his actions beforehand. But you know what they say, "If you leap into deep waters, you should bring your floaties."
You know who said that?
Thoreau.
In conclusion, Bartleby's article, which in case you or the NSA had forgotten is entitled "I am desirous of bayonetting you in the head, President Bush", is not art but the dangerous and seditious ramblings of a man begging, pleading, practically screeching from atop his own mountainous hubris to be locked up and put away, to have a bag thrown over his head, and to have a religious compilation of his choice defecated on in his presence by America's finest. I think it's only fitting.
Faithfully submitted. Sean A. Crespo. Satirist at Arms.
-----------------------------------
*Let's get this out of the way right now. I do not merely have AIDS, I fucking love them. I relish them. I wake up every day and thank god I have this reverse transcriptase infecting mo'fo'. In short, I am aware that most people with AIDS feel as if they've been handed an immunological curse. But me...I love my AIDS!
Maybe that's because I like a challenge in life. Not being sure of your ability to handle a minor cold because your T Cell count is down to 3 (total) adds a certain spice to life that Bartleby, hiding behind his vaguely European sentiments and prose a shade of purple so deep as not to be seen since Lovecraft coined the phrase, "blasphemously surviving nightmares squirm and splash out of their black lairs to newer and wider conquests"--You know, that old gem--is completely incapable of savoring.
But let's get back to the issue at hand, namely Bartleby's cavalier announcement to the world of his very real and completely unfabricated desire to do grievous harm with the intent of causing a fatal injury to the President of the United States Of America, George W. Bush, our Leader, whom I respect and adore as a Champion of Virtue and Grooming.
-----------------------------------
ADDENDUM
I would also like it noted that I recently witnessed Bartleby talking to RobotMan in a chat room in fluent Arabic about (and this is a rough translation here I cobbled together on my own with what I remembered from my 10 years of Advanced Arabic studies) "the glorious 18 martyrs that you and I, RobotMan and Bartleby McFinn, helped achieve God's will against America, the Great Satan." As my mouse had become incapacitated that day from over heating (which happens all the time, as anyone who loves freedom could tell you), I was unable to copy the text of their conversation onto my computer. However, as someone who loves freedom and who has an IQ of 161, I would be more than happy to access my old fashioned hard drive--I like to call it my memory--and relay to you or maybe one of your friends from the NSA the whole, exact contents of their nefarious, traitorous conversation.
I can't prove any of this mind you. It's just something to think about.
Also, he once ate a live baby. (human)
Below you will find his initial childish post followed by my extremely brilliant parry and riposte. I think you will find this exchange illuminating of both our characters. Please check in again soon as more and more Cracked bloggers get pulled into our internecine word war. As they say, "it" is most definitely "on."
Thank you,
Sean Crespo
Sean Crespo Has AIDS
It has come to my attention that a certain Sean Crespo, purveyor of derivative political commentary and 1980s popular culture analysis, has positioned himself as some sort of satire professor. The man, plainly put, is a fraud. Not only is this sophist of Hollywood D.C. sycophancy completely unqualified to teach basic human hygiene, let alone the timeless art of lampoonery – he is almost entirely without CD4+ T Cells.
That’s right: Sean Crespo, self-proclaimed satire educator, has AIDS.
I don’t know how Mr. Crespo conducts his raillery lessons, but if they involve intravenous drug use, blood transfusions, or unprotected sexual intercourse, be advised: Sean Crespo Will Teach You Satire And Then You Will Have AIDS. And not just any old AIDS. Blue-ribbon, top-notch, undefeated AIDS.
Boss AIDS.
I find it odd that anyone would want to learn burlesque exposition from an uncertified instructor when they could simply study the techniques of great American humorists like Mark Twain and Martin Luther King, Jr. And while I suppose it is beyond the purview of my humble station to supervise the nurturing of sarcasm or the biological integrity of others, I consider it my duty as your intellectual superior to warn you that if, after being taught satire, you kiss Sean Crespo on the mouth, you, too, will have AIDS.
Yes, Sean Crespo is a Casanova. He’ll approach you on the playground or at a middle-school dance, staring off into the distance with his head turned, revealing an evenly distributed five-o-clock shadow and neatly pressed grey t-shirt with a dark collar. He’ll show you the keys to his mom’s Taurus, and offer to buy you and your friends cigarettes and fireworks. He’ll pour you a glass of cheap Chianti from an expensive looking bottle of Bordeaux. Then he’ll seal the deal with a profound axiom of derisive comedy: a bizarre conceit involving two unrelated entities (such as a ne’er-do-well internet charlatan and a fatal disease) is priceless.
I am but a man: Bartleby H. McFinn, Editor-In-Chief of Regicides Anonymous. I do not have all the answers, only most of them. And unlike other philanthropists of wit, when I bestow upon you a lifetime’s worth of acerbic knowledge, you will not be stigmatized, marginalized, or exceedingly prone to opportunistic infections and tumors. You will be free.
Regicides Anonymous: A Clear and Present Danger to the President
Look, I acknowledge that perhaps what you are about to read is not the most honest or most respectful means of addressing grievances against a fellow satirist, that is by airing them out in the open here on this well-trafficked site for every Excel jockey sporting a halogen tan, slumped over at his semi-ergonomic drudgery station at one of the millions of conglomo-multi-corps offices sprinkled liberally by conservatives throughout this great country of ours to see, but, as we all know, "Freedom lives or dies in the moments between deliberation and action."
Do you know who said that?
I did. Just now. That was a test and you failed it. Let me just say before continuing..."Wow."
Anyway, that is why I feel it is important we address right now the recent posting by Bartleby H. McFinn of Regicides Anonymous entitled "I am desirous of bayonetting you in the head, President Bush" which, after my initial query to him regarding this titular treachery, I find noticably absent from his archives and main page, replaced as it currently is with a character assassination (ahem) of yours truly, Sean Crespo, in which I am accused of having AIDS.*
If you did not have a chance to view the article in question before it was hurriedly pulled from the web in a terror-induced CNTRL + X frenzy, allow me a thousand words to paint an adequate picture for you. Note that I may have to stop and start at regular intervals in order to allow myself the occasional nap. I do after have AIDS, which will, as they say, "take it out of you."
Similar to several pieces I found while mucking through Regicides Anonymous' spiritual cavity, "I am desirous of bayonetting you in the head, President Bush" was a smartly worded character piece of the deconstructive, nominally "open-letter" variety told through the POV of one of his few alter-egos. I honestly don't know why he bothers with characters at all. Bartleby is the only blogger I know capable of writing from even fewer and less interesting alter ego "voices" than the dilapidated stock-character factory that is Robin Williams, whose tired-before-they-were-even-created repertoire includes Sassy Black Female, Southern Preacher, Surfer Dude, and the Very Gay Man.
Unfortunately this time, the object of Bartleby's precocious, night college essay-like scorn in this instance was our brave Commander In Chief, the President of the United States, G.W. Bush, my personal hero.
Now let me take a moment to address those of you who would argue the familiar angle that art is not subject to the same rules as other spheres of communication, that it's inherently subjective nature removes it from the critical moral purview of "normal" society. Well, this may come as a surprise as it is me saying this, but you are actually correct. (Don't get cocky. What are you, 1 for 3 billion? That's not an impressive enough record to warrant any sort of behavior outside of mute humility. So shhhh.....while we wrap this up.)
Regardless, I concur that the caveat of art being difficult to define, nebulous, is completely valid. In such a case, it would be impossible to prove that Bartleby's article wasn't a work of art, making it therefore unassailable by the tenets of moral logic as well as of law enforcement. Fortunately since Regicides Anonymous is imbued with blessings from the Muse of Shitheadery and not the Muse of Art, it is safe to conclude that the author in question intended a very literal, non-metaphorical interpretation of his article which was, once again, entitled "I am desirous of bayonetting you in the head, President Bush" which I list repeatedly only out of my profound sense of duty to make sure the NSA's google searches for word pairings like "President" and "bayonetting" bear some fruit.
"But you can't be the lone arbiter of what is and isn't art, Sean!" you mutter, continuing down this drowning, gasping line of reasoning.
I can and am. Now stop puling.
"Maybe there are plenty of people out there who think Regicides Anonymous is brilliant and witty," you suggest.
There aren't. I've seen his traffic.
"But but but...you post biting, politically satiric articles constantly. What separates your work from Bartleby's article which was entitled "I am desirous of bayonetting you in the head, President Bush"?" you stammer.
Three things:
1. I don't have sausages for fingers as evidenced by Bartleby's keyboard mash-typed articles.
2. The blue blood coursing through Bartleby's neo-aristocratic veins means his idea of politics is marrying German cousins for the dowry and reflecting back jovially on feudalism.
3. I can read.
And to top it off, I'm at least honest enough with my readers to use my real name. We're both fairly cantankerous on line personalities, but "Bartleby H. McFinn?" Clearly a pseudonym used by a man too afraid to lambast his readers and then deal with the inevitable consequences: the sweet deluge of hate mail which I've learned to not only survive but in fact thrive on. But then I suppose that matches with the delicate tastes and possibly consumptive features I would tend to associate with a person named "Bartleby H. McFinn." And that is in fact the point. This person, this creature named "Bartleby," is then licensed to vent all the inappropriate, egotistical meanderings that the real author of Regicides Anonymous can not. It's a tried and true method. Switch and Bait, my friends. Hell, I could have given myself a funny name like "Hortence P. Squiggenbottom" or "Malachourte Z. (pronounced "zed") Treacle." But did I? No. Why? Because I am ok with being hated. And "Bartleby" is not. Which makes my having revealed his conspiracy regarding his wish to "bayonet" "in the head" "President Bush" all the more tragic. If only Bartelby had considered his actions beforehand. But you know what they say, "If you leap into deep waters, you should bring your floaties."
You know who said that?
Thoreau.
In conclusion, Bartleby's article, which in case you or the NSA had forgotten is entitled "I am desirous of bayonetting you in the head, President Bush", is not art but the dangerous and seditious ramblings of a man begging, pleading, practically screeching from atop his own mountainous hubris to be locked up and put away, to have a bag thrown over his head, and to have a religious compilation of his choice defecated on in his presence by America's finest. I think it's only fitting.
Faithfully submitted. Sean A. Crespo. Satirist at Arms.
-----------------------------------
*Let's get this out of the way right now. I do not merely have AIDS, I fucking love them. I relish them. I wake up every day and thank god I have this reverse transcriptase infecting mo'fo'. In short, I am aware that most people with AIDS feel as if they've been handed an immunological curse. But me...I love my AIDS!
Maybe that's because I like a challenge in life. Not being sure of your ability to handle a minor cold because your T Cell count is down to 3 (total) adds a certain spice to life that Bartleby, hiding behind his vaguely European sentiments and prose a shade of purple so deep as not to be seen since Lovecraft coined the phrase, "blasphemously surviving nightmares squirm and splash out of their black lairs to newer and wider conquests"--You know, that old gem--is completely incapable of savoring.
But let's get back to the issue at hand, namely Bartleby's cavalier announcement to the world of his very real and completely unfabricated desire to do grievous harm with the intent of causing a fatal injury to the President of the United States Of America, George W. Bush, our Leader, whom I respect and adore as a Champion of Virtue and Grooming.
-----------------------------------
ADDENDUM
I would also like it noted that I recently witnessed Bartleby talking to RobotMan in a chat room in fluent Arabic about (and this is a rough translation here I cobbled together on my own with what I remembered from my 10 years of Advanced Arabic studies) "the glorious 18 martyrs that you and I, RobotMan and Bartleby McFinn, helped achieve God's will against America, the Great Satan." As my mouse had become incapacitated that day from over heating (which happens all the time, as anyone who loves freedom could tell you), I was unable to copy the text of their conversation onto my computer. However, as someone who loves freedom and who has an IQ of 161, I would be more than happy to access my old fashioned hard drive--I like to call it my memory--and relay to you or maybe one of your friends from the NSA the whole, exact contents of their nefarious, traitorous conversation.
I can't prove any of this mind you. It's just something to think about.
Also, he once ate a live baby. (human)
posted by Carol at 10:30 AM
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