Dear Oxford English Dictionary

I, for no identifiable reason, hold the English language in extraordinary regard. I don't believe in much, but I do believe in the sanctity of the English language. By this, I don't mean to imply that I am the kind of person who is offended by multilingualism in America. I, unlike others, do not throw a fit over declining American values whenever I see a "wet floor" sign that also reads "piso mojado." I am sure that if I was fluent in another language, I would hold it the same high regard that I hold English. But, I digress. What I mean is that I want to protect the language from being diluted and ruined by the unwashed plebs. I understand that language naturally evolves, but sometimes a line must be drawn.

My specific concern lies with the word "irony," and all of its different forms. I have come to the conclusion that everybody—literally everybody, including myself—uses the word incorrectly. Regardless of its original meaning, the word has been used to denote so many similar yet distinct abstract concepts that it has become vague, imprecise, and borderline meaningless.

Instead of trying to restore the word to its original meaning, a fruitless endeavor indeed, I suggest that the word be abolished and replaced with other, new words that each refer to a specific concept that the word irony has now come to describe. For example: The fact that Frank Beard is the only member of ZZ Top without a beard. Is this irony? It is certainly something, and I think we should have a word that describes it. What if the fire department catches on fire? What about the “irony” that hipsters and deconstructionists use to describe their annoying tastes and lifestyles? All these and more deserve to be more accurately denoted with specific words. Without such we are missing out on a richer language.

With greatest sincerity,
Nicko

Dear People Who Try to Tell Me About a Band by Saying that "They're a Christian band, but they don't really sing about God"

After you say this, I immediately disregard everything you say to me afterwards, forever.

Just letting you know,
Nicko

Dear France

Nice job convicting the Church of Scientology of organized fraud. Next, you should convict every other organized religion for the same thing.

Vous continuez bon traviller,
Nicko

Dear People Who Call Richard Nixon the Worst President in American History

You people give Tricky Dick a lot of guff, and I think it's undeserved. I mean, sure, he was an arrogant, unscrupulous scumbag, but he was a career politician, and I don't think you can get mad at a guy for being good at his job.

The thing that you people cite most often as the reason why Nixon sucks is the fact that he destroyed the American people's faith in the presidency, for which I feel he should be commended. He was a revolutionary in that regard. We should dig up his grave and put a medal on his corpse. Any action that makes the American public less sheepish is an act of progress. A little bit of moderate, healthy skepticism is good.

Also not a crook,
Nicko

Dear Lady Gaga

Are you for real? Is this whole image you created genuine, or is it self-parody of the whole pop diva image? I’m honestly not sure if you’re actually an over-the-top nutcase or if you’re just some pretentious hipster who is, as the British say, taking the piss out of pop music.

If it is genuine, I feel obligated to politely ask you to bugger off and get hit by a truck. You are terrible at what you do and are a detriment to the already endangered gene pool.

If it is parody, which I believe is more likely because what little remaining faith I have in humanity doesn’t allow for a world in which people as crazy as you are can be successful, I think it’s time that you come out with it. I sort of admire the brazen way in which you deliberately write atrocious songs because you know that’s what sells big, but it doesn’t change that you’re still filling the airwaves with atrocious songs. Just because you’re being “ironic” doesn’t excuse you from setting the progression of music back fifteen years with your abominable sonic sewage. You’ve made your gobs money at the expense of the masses of tasteless plebs who have been ruining mainstream music for the last twenty years and the postmodernists and hipsters who think doing this is really cool; now it’s played out and you have to stop. I shudder to think of the imitators you might inspire. Imagine: a wave of money-driven, egotistical, and talentless aural rapists pretending to be a different kind of money-driven, egotistical, and talentless aural rapists. Do you want to be responsible for that? Do you? I don’t know, like I said I can’t tell with you. I sure as hell hope not.

I’ll poke your face,
Nicko

Dear People who Yell "Run Forrest, Run" or Variations Thereof at other People

Everybody thinks they're a damn comedian, and most of them are not. You people, more so than others, are not. It's not even a joke. It's a reference. I don't even understand what you're trying to accomplish by yelling this. Look, sometimes I have to run places, alright? I don't need your poorly implemented ridicule. What if my house was on fire and my family was trapped inside, and that's why I was running when you yelled at me? You'd look like a real asshole, asshole. So maybe you should think before you crack terrible, unfunny jokes made at the expense of people who are burning alive.

Smoke me,
Nicko

Dear Self-proclaimed "Christian Rock Musicians"

Stop it right now. You're not allowed to do that. If your religion spent the last three decades condemning a genre of music using its characteristic baseless and sensationalist arguments, you are not allowed to turn around and try to claim that music for yourself. Okay? That's the rule. And you especially if your interpretation of that genre is to produce watery, trite, unapologetically inoffensive garbage that undermines everything that genre stands for. You can't do that.

Regardless of message, your “music” is simply no good at all. Your products are bland, uninspired, middle-of-the-road songs. I expect more from a group of people who claim to be profoundly moved by their faith. You know, something, anything, more challenging or engaging, be it lyrically or instrumentally.

All of your songs are about the same thing. Every song! How many bands can you name that write songs exclusively about one topic? If you answered with a number other than zero, I can assure the none of the bands to which you are referring are any good, unless you're referring to AC/DC. AC/DC’s cool.

Sincere in my loathing,
Nicko

Dear People who Mispronounce “Reese’s” as “Ree-sees”

You people are the bane of my existence. Clearly you troglodytes don’t understand how English works. Reese’s. The possesive form of the name Reese, as in Harry Burnett Reese, the guy who invented the friggin’ things. Where did this “Ree-sees” thing come from? How has it become so ingrained in the public consciousness? It seems like nobody knows how to pronounce this word except me, which makes me look like the crazy asshole when I correct people. This is how my descent into madness began! How have you done this to me?! You are the ones who are objectively wrong! Why must I be the one to suffer?

Thanks for ruining me,
Nicko

Dear Fans of Jack Kerouac

You are provably insane. Kerouac was not a good poet. He wasn’t even a poet. He didn’t write poetry. He wrote prose. It’s not poetry if you take regular prose and break the lines after every few words.

Look how easy
It is to do
That. Check me
Out. I’m the voice
Of a
Generation.

No matter what you call it, his writings are not deep or meaningful. They’re limp, pretentious, and incoherent. They’re devoid of any insight or beauty. Kerouac was a borderline sociopath who had an extremely tenuous grasp on the English language. He lowered the standards of the written word and inspired the beat movement, a culture of half-assed, conceded art house urchins suffering from delusions of artistic grandeur. We, as a species, are worse off for having him.

Your opinions no longer matter,
Nicko

Dear Adults who Read and Defend Twilight

You do realize that those books are harlequin romance novels for preteens, right? You could go to any adult bookstore and purchase what is essentially the same thing, only with actual sex. The books have no artistic or literary value. They are simply escapist fantasies for sexually repressed young girls with low self-esteem. When you’re twelve, it’s called a phase. When you’re forty, it’s a cry for help.

You can do nothing to convince me otherwise,
Nicko

Dear Non-Homeless Buskers

I know you want to earn money for playing your instrument, but if you have access to a shower, you need to get off the street. If your parents bought you that guitar, you need to get off the street. If you can afford huge ugly sunglasses and bottled water, you need to get off the street. If you have a shaved head, you need to get off the street. If your girlfriend is sitting by you, bored out of her skull, you need to get off the street. If all you know how to play is “Wonderwall” and a sloppy, looping rendition of the beginning of “Stairway to Heaven,” you need to get off the street. If you are actually having a jam session outside with one or more of your equally talentless friends with an open guitar case in front of you with a few bills in it that you put there so people know that you expect to be paid, you need to get off the street.

I don’t make the rules,
Nicko

Dear Cold Front

You’re a real Grade-A son of a bitch. Coming out of nowhere and lowering the temperature by thirty degrees overnight. I’m sick, man. Albeit, I’m not sick enough to get out of going to class, but I insist that that’s worse. I already have to walk across campus and sit in class for hours while I feel like garbage; the last thing I need is for you to traipse on in here with your 50 degree lows making everything worse. I mean, if you have to go and ruin the weather, couldn’t you have the courtesy to go whole hog and bring the temperature down below freezing so it can start snowing and everyone here in sunny Florida can promptly start losing their minds and closing down everything so I can sleep off this cold?

No. You couldn’t. Because you’re an inanimate weather phenomenon controlled by equally inanimate forces, devoid of free will or purpose. You bastard.

A pox upon thee,
Nicko

Dear People Who Make Jokes About Closets, Specifically About Other People Being in and Coming out of Them

Hey, you know who isn’t funny? You bunch of brain surgeons. It’s done, okay? It was hilarious when South Park did it back in 2005, but they did it so well they killed it for anyone else. Any attempt of yours to make a closet joke is a lousy, derivative knock-off of that episode and you’re not impressing anyone who matters.

Shut up forever,

Nicko

Dear Everyone

Why do you keep so cars so friggin' cold?!

Apparently the only person who's wrong,

Nicko

Dear Sonic Youth and Jane's Addiction

You are art criminals. The lumbering caterwauls that you have the audacity to produce and sell under the guise of music are appallingly atrocious. I am personally offended that you are arrogant enough to think that anyone would enjoy your dissonant, repulsive drivel. If I am ever provided with the opportunity, I will kill you without hesitation with a claw hammer.

Watch your back,

Nicko

Dear Weather.com, and by extension all meteorologists

I just checked the weather forecast for today. It says that the temperature today is 79 degrees, but because of the high humidity it feels like it's 84. Screw you, weather.com. Screw you right in the gums. If it feels like it's 84 degrees, then the temperature is 84 degrees. You don't need to waste my time with your theoretical, unobservable temperatures. I don't need to know the humidity percentage. I don't need to know the wind chill. I don't need to know the dew point. All I need in my weather report is a list with three checkboxes: is it too hot?, is it too cold?, is it going to rain while I’m outside? That’s it. Do that, and then we’ll talk.

Fall in a well and rot,

Nicko