Deeper than Deep Throat [Jan 6, 2003]

Yesterday, I received this email:

Dear Matthew Tobey of Haypenny,

Just who do you think you are, accusing the Eskimos and Harlem Globetrotters of even thinking about terrorism, let alone supporting al Qaeda and the nations of the Axis of Evil? These are two of the most beloved organizations our world has to offer, and they have long been friends of your and my United States, sir. Why, in World War II, the Harlem Globetrotters carried our brave boys on their backs, across enemy lines, like human tanks. And let us never forget that Lady Bird Johnson and John Sununu were both of Inuit descent, God rest their souls. What's more, Sandra Day O'Connor was born of Globetrotters and raised by our chilly friends from up-north when her parents died of exhaustion and multiple bullet and bayonet wounds in the second World War.

Shame, sir, shame on you. If you're to continue such bold accusations, I, and the rest of the readership of this blog, must ask—nay, demand!—that you offer some explanation as to how you came to possess these lies that you so callously and casually spew like so much spew-juice.

Yours,

Zach Braff and the Cast of NBC's Scrubs

There are hundreds more just like this one, flooding my email box even as I presently type. I have to admit that I'm not exactly surprised by this kind of a response. The truth can be a painful and searing thing that stabs at the mind and rapes at the soul. I, myself, went through an entire weekend of manic, urine-soaked denial after first learning of the many factions of the organization of omnipotence and mayhem that I have mustered the bravery to expose on this blog.

I had never intended on revealing my source, but it seems my tight lips and trustworthiness couldn't save my dear friend, so identifying him is no longer consequential. My courageous informer was none other than photographer Herb Ritts.

I met Rittsy early this year at a Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers in Tempe, Arizona. Filthy and disoriented, he appeared to have suffered a concussion after a rollerblading stunt gone awry and had been wandering aimlessly for thousands of miles before collapsing in my Big Bacon Classic. I carried Herb back to the condo I was subletting and nursed him back to health over the course of the following month.

As his strength and wits returned, Herb and I became intimate confidants and before we finally parted ways, he held me in a sibling-like embrace and whispered into my ear the world's deepest and darkest of secrets, a secret I now share with you all, despite our never experiencing a nurse/patient-type bond. As you can see, Rittsy’s knowledge of these goings-on sealed his fate. I hope the pestering emailers are satisfied. I can only pray that I am able to elude the same grim destiny.

Comments, apologies and Survivor 7 audition tapes can be emailed to me here. Read Haypenny. Buy Neal's book Beneath the Axis of Evil: One Man's Journey Into the Horrors of War. Bought it already? Buy it again.