March
16
And someone has already done the parody route with killtoby.com. OK. I took the virtual Ferrari out for a spin and came back with this. Whew. He didn't really get $18,000. He DID, however, get some world-class hate mail that should be the envy of every aspiring humor writer. HEY! Speaking of hate mail, I just remembered something I did! This was pre-puter so it was all done with personal ads in a free weekly newspaper called the Queen Anne News or something like that. I made up a club called Enemies of the Raccoons. It was a parody (sort of--I really did not like raccoons) of a group in Mercer Island, Washington, called Friends of the Raccoons. I am going to go to the files and see if I still have anything...nope...too bad...have to depend on my faulty memory. Times seem to have changed there, however. I have found this online:
I especially like the "after checking to make sure the raccoon is not inside" part. Duh. If you think that raccoons are obnoxious alive, you cannot imagine how much worse they can be dead. Anyway, back to Enemies of the Raccoons. I ran an ad in that weekly paper that said something like "Hate raccoons? Join Enemies of the Raccoons. Send your raccoon horror stories to Box XXXX, Queen Anne News, yada yada." And did I get mail! But only a couple of people wanted to join. Most of them wanted me dead. Raccoons, it seems, have some very unstable supporters. I recall one of them saying "it's a well-known fact that people who hate raccoons also own guns." This was, I think, an explanation for her having sent an anonymous threat. Even back then I managed to get more publicity than I wanted. Soon after the hate mail began pouring in, I received a call from a man named Larry Sturholm. He was a well-known Seattle area reporter, famous for his fun stories. My favorite was his piece about a Canada goose who had claimed someone's driveway and garage door as his own. It was attacking anyone who came near, Sturholm included. It was great reporting. "Are you the person responsible for 'Enemies of the Raccoons?'" he asked. "How did you get my name??!?" I responded. "The Queen Anne News gave it to me," he answered. Holy shit. I'm getting mail from lunatics and they are giving out my name and number to anyone who says he is Larry Sturholm? I declined the 15 minutes of fame, which I saw as possibly several years on life-support, offered by Mr. Sturholm and called the paper to tell them to NEVER EVER do that again. And to stop the ad while they were at it. It was fun while it lasted, though. Where did this all start, anyway? Oh, yeah--"buy this magazine or we shoot the dog" and saving Toby. I was about to think of a reason to donate to The Saint Report--something that the humor-impaired might consider extortion. I'll have to think for a few more days. In the meantime, have faith that I will come up with something and click the button anyway.* *Note: Thanks to Laura R. for sending me the Toby links. Saint Urho's Day Noticeably absent from the list of saints o' the day today is Saint Urho. This is because the purely mythical Urho was invented by some people in Minnesota (where the Februaries last through March at least) with nothing much to do and then exported to Hood River, Oregon. As the Clay's Corner Possum Drop makes me long for something my town can drop on New Year's Eve, Saint Urho's Day makes me want to give Bisbee its own saint.
Probably it would be sufficient to have a Saint Elmo's celebration since there is already a Saint Elmo's Tavern in Bisbee. Of course, Saint Elmo was more or less real, which is confining.
Onward to March 17
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