The more things change, the more they stay the same: a selection from the past decade’s letters to the Mercury. (Turns out most of them could have been written yesterday.)—Eds.
BIRDS DO NOT CONSTITUTE ART
TO THE EDITOR: What the fuck is up with your fucking cover art! It sucks shit! That’s two twee bird issues in a row [Sept 5 & Sept 12, 2002]. Come on people! It might be all cute and post-modern and whatever the fuck, but that doesn’t save the fact that it’s shit. It’s throwaway garbage. I hate it. Why don’t you assholes in the design department give me a crack at designing your cover? I do REAL ART!!! My last painting is of my ex-girlfriend giving Satan a blowjob. And I have another of George W. Bush putting a condom on my dad while four Vietnamese boys are rimming Dick Cheney in the background. It’s accomplished in-yer-face shit, and the Mercury should recognize. So get off the bird tip and get with some shit with some fucking soul!
-Todd AKA “The Cracker”
SASQUATCH TERRORIST!
TO THE EDITOR: I read “I Hunt the Giant Man-Ape” [Sept 11, 2003] and found a lot of disturbing things. This stupid guy [Erik Henriksen] who thinks he’s a “Sasquatch hunter” is nothing more than a killer who only cares about money and not the welfare of the poor Sasquatch. “Bigfoot lusts for the sweet, sweet taste of human blood”? There has NEVER been a report of the Sasquatch intentionally doing harm to a human. If the Sasquatch is a human killer, why do they run when they see people? Why aren’t there tons of Sasquatch attack reports? I can’t believe he really thought he could accomplish such a hideous thing… trying to lure a Sasquatch with bologna?? And bash it over the head with a baseball bat? In my eyes, he’s no better than the terrorists; they kill innocent people and now this guy is trying to kill innocent creatures for no reason at all but money. Some people are wasted skin and poor excuses for humans.
-Hollie
WHAT’S A “TAWAIT”?
TO THE MERCURY: [Original spelling and grammar have been left uncorrected to preserve the hilarity of this letter.—Eds.] LIstin and learn don’t you think your going to know what a Juggalo is in one night you assholes please go back to your second rate paper and eat a big pile of shit you tawaits wouldn’t know what it means to write a good article you stink and your paper is cursed now always and forever for eternity HEX ME you just fucked up haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa HEX ME HEX ME ok your HEXED ass holessssssss your paper hexed all who works for this paper Hexed so there happy next time don’t fuck with the clowns bitchhhhhhhhh.
-JOKER
WE’VE FAILED YOU, ROY SMALLWOOD
I FUCKING DARE YOU TO PRINT THIS: How can it be that so many thousands of relatively like-minded, intelligent, aware people can occupy the counterculture of Portland, and still all we have to show for it is the FUCKING MERCURY? Consider that, simply by virtue of your existence as independent media, it is incumbent upon your publication to print something of value—to challenge SOME idea. I am at long last beginning to smell the vile mold of complete irrelevance growing over my town and my culture. And, unlike the cheerleaders of indifference that rule your staff, I don’t like the stench of it.
-Roy Smallwood
AN OLD GUY’S TWO CENTS
DEAR MERCURY—My single biggest gripe about sex [possibly in reference to the Mercury Sex Survey, Feature, March 8, 2007] is that I have to go to Nevada to get laid legally for money. As an old guy, it is impossible to get laid legally by a hot chick in this state. But in Nevada I can get them half my age in pairs. Oregon can kiss my ass about where I spend my vacation money. Fuck the coast. Fuck Mt. Hood. I go to the Bunny Ranch and fuck ’til I can’t walk anymore and crawl out to my car.
-Old Guy Loves Mercury
Smallwood:
Shut your stupid cocksucker for a god damn minute and try to get a grip on reality. Reality is, this ass-wipe of a weekly is for entertainment purposes only. If you don’t like it spend your money on something that does entertain you…wait, this is free? Ya don’t say! What the the fuck were you complaining about? Lack of challenged ideas? Challenge these nuts to vacate your mouth, bitch.
PS. Portland has been irrelevant for the 34 years that I’ve lived here. In fact, I believe that its irrelevance is possibly the only thing giving it any relevance at all. As for this culture being yours…fuck you, culture is strictly an import in Portland. Move back to sf or ny, wherever it is they cultivate this culture you speak of.
While you may have a funny name snickerdoodle, you do have some relevant points, however I argue that Portland is irrelevant because it has’nt been for the 20 plus years I’ve lived here and was just fine before the douchebags you mention moved or immigrated from the Midwest for our “scene”. Take it from me, you can’t fight them all. Just pick them off one at a time. As for the Mercury, it’s free, it can be entertaining(or alternately annoying but at least it generates a reaction in me) and Marjorie Skinner is intelligent, interesting and really hot. Oh, and while we are doing the apology thing, I apologize for making a former staffer virtually piss themselves, but that smarmy hipster BS ticks me off, particularly when you are attempting to pick up on my girlfriend in a highly annoying manner.. Overall, i give the Mercury some respect for being the more entertaining “free weekly”. Well, gotta go, I need my meds. Peace.
I wipe my ass with it.I haven’t developed any rash yet and my backdoor is silky smooth.Its FREE too!!!!I love the Reporter.Keep up the great job and long live and prosper….please,because if you go away then so does the silky sheen on my ass.I know they will fuck me up if I start wiping my ass on this Library computer.
Birds the word.Papa ooom mow mow.
@Showstopper: It’s hard not to notice that your nativist ranting has gone on here for months (or years possibly, I don’t know). People have migrated to the Pacific Northwest continually for a couple of centuries, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. Good people and terrible people are born here; good people and terrible people move here.
The problems with Portland have to do with business, finance, environment, politics. Stop ranting about “douchebags,” “hipsters,” and people in tight pants. It’s irrelevant. Focus on making Portland a better place. Your arrogant complaints and self-righteousness are just part of the problem.
Word. Spoken like a true tight pantsed, douchebag, hipster.
P.S. People born in Oregon need to recognize that their ancestors came here at some point and began taking up land and other resources generally on the basis of racial supremacy. Your presence here is predicated on a history of displacement of indigenous people, environmental destruction, exclusion laws that expelled and kept out people of color, and de facto means to accomplish the same. Get off your high horse.
Yeah, cuz mom and dad totally burned and raped an entire Nez Pierce village in their white sheets on their way to OHSU where I was born. We promptly set up shop on their freshly desicrated burial grounds and refused to serve black people coffee in our Evironmental Destruction Cafe and Bistro. (Where we would have served you with a smile, geyser, you pasty windbag of a wannabe intellectual)
Thanks for your description of the entire “civilized” world, I feel so educated now I’ve finally climbed off my high horse and tuned into the voice of wisdom emanating from your mom’s suicide pit of a semen stained basement.
Kill yourself.
I had to report that last comment. That sort of ugliness isn’t doing any body any good. You wouldn’t tell someone to kill themselves face-to-face, so don’t do it online. It’s just awful.
@ Jason: What’s awful is when polly-anna motherfuckers like yourself butt into a comment board battle with your goody-two-shoes bullshit and get raped like a drunk chick at a frat house. You should Seacrest your bitch-made-lame-ass out of this conversation before geyser blows a load all over your dirty unicorn face.