Hate Haiku

Proof Positive that P.M.S. is not the Global-Wide Conspiracy I once thought

It has been a tough week here at the Hyperion Institute for Advanced Callimastian/Callipygian Studies. First one of my overseas distributors (in London) got an opportunity to travel around the world for a year with some rich guy. Like Linus in Sabrina, she had to leave right then, and barely had time to tell me about it. I wish her well, but she sent the Hyperion Chronicles out to 131 people, all lost.

Then—on the very same day—I lost a second international distributor, a woman in Transylvania. I know; of all the places to meet a potential reader, but over the Internet you get to know some very different people. I don’t know what’s up with her email; it just bounced back, and I haven’t been able to get ahold of her any other way. For all I know, her town was overrun by vampyres. So, there went another 80 readers.

All of this was happening in the midst of the unbelievable fallout—even for me—from #123 All Women are Martyrs. As of this writing, I’ve lost 61 people from that column alone.

I guess I should have expected some of this. After all, I’m the dumbass who went ahead with that absurd title. I was going to go with something more innocuous, like Sociology 101 or Martyrdom: the Untold Story, but I made the mistake of talking all of this over with my friend Aviendha (a waitress at Logan’s in Nashville. . If you’re in the area, stop by and give her a big tip).

I told her my idea for the column, what I wanted to title it, and what I would probably end up titling it. Anna made fun of me and accused me of Eunuchation. (For my slower readers from states starting with a vowel, that means she said I had no balls) Of course, ever the calm, rational thinking person, I immediately declared I would damn well keep my original title, and thus my fate was sealed.

Most of the time I don’t know my readers who quit. When I do know them, it hurts a bit. Then there is the letter I got yesterday from “Roadie.” (Her real name is actually weirder. Apparently her folks were hippies) Let me explain:

I once had this extraordinarily stupid friend I’ll call Duck (short for Dumb Fuck), who talked me into going to a strip club with him. I am not really into that, but I have nothing against them, and I thought it might be interesting.

It was, only not in the normal hormonal way. I was fascinated by the microcosm of human behavior, and actually pulled out my pad of paper and took 27 pages of notes on what I saw. Now that I think back on it, I don’t know whether that says good things about me or bad. I guess I really am a nerd, to be in a place with gyrating flesh and only be interested in what might make a good column.

One of the unexpected results of my atypical behavior was that quite a few women were curious as to why I wasn’t paying attention to various mammary glands--instead writing feverishly away on my steno—and came up to ask me about it. I got so many phone numbers and email addresses; one guy accused me of doing it on purpose.

The phone numbers didn’t interest me, but writing whore that I am, I always love to get new readers (some of whom, I might add, are reading this now). One person that particularly interested me was Roadie. She was a drink girl there, which meant she walked around trying to get people to buys test tubes full of colorful alcohol for $5 a pop. Roadie was one of the only employees there with clothes on, which she explained to me was a hard-and-fast rule: only the dancers could be naked.

Roadie told me the reason she took the job was to pay for her kids' karate and ballet lessons. I asked her why she would work at a place like that, and not go ahead and be a stripper. I mean, if you are comfortable working there, why not go all in and make the big money? (And believe me, she could have.)

I thought she might have moral qualms, but Roadie very seriously told me she aspired to dance naked, and had a website proving her desire to be unclad. (If I were vicious, I’d link it here, but my damn ethics…) The reason she wasn’t dancing was stage fright, which Roadie hoped to get over soon. I’ve never been back, so for all I know, she is now fulfilling her dreams of acrobatically accepting sweaty dollar bills with muscles rarely used for that purpose.

So back to my column, and her letter. Here is what she wrote:

Had it with your egregious literary sense. Your writing demeans women. Please cancel and lose my address!!!!!!

I’m not upset that Roadie used a word like “egregious,” which after talking to her I’m fairly certain she doesn’t know the meaning of. It’s that Roadie was upset I was "demeaning women." Let me write that again for those who didn’t hear me in the back: Roadie—who has a naked website and aspires to be a full-fledged stripper—thinks I am bringing down the cause of women everywhere. Someone ought to get ahold of Alanis Morissette: here’s something she should’ve actually put in her song…

As for the others, I don’t know any of them personally and so I have no idea as to their motivation. I did some great responses, though, and I thought I would share them with you.

One letter I got (which reflected quite a few writers’ sentiments) wondered how I could just assume all women were martyrs. She wrote:

You never came close to proving all women are martyrs. All you are doing is hurting the cause of women by saying this. Don’t you know that its [sic] shit like this that makes suffering on women everywere? [sic]

What can I say? If you read the column, I was clear that my title was bombastic, and I wasn’t saying all women are martyrs, but rather as a gender they tend to have the trait more developed than men. I especially love how she blamed me for the suffering of all women. No, nothing martyr-like about that.

One thing she wrote though that others did too: me not proving my case that women are martyrs. It was never my intention to prove such a thing. I don’t even know how you’d go about proving it. The way I look at it is: I just assume it to be true, much like if you said men are generally more aggressive. Yes, there are reasons, like testosterone and perhaps the Y chromosome, but if you don’t believe it to begin with, you’re not going to accept any evidence. You all live in the world. You’ve interacted with many people, both men and women. You either recognize what I am saying—that more women tend to act like martyrs—as obvious on its face, or you’re never going to believe it. So why try to prove it?

Several readers hoped I’d soon make the journey to the shady region of the afterlife:

Go to hell.

Why don’t you go to HELL?

Your [sic] a sick bastard and you’re going to hell.

Or a variation on said theme:

You suck. Why don’t you go back where you came from, to all the other chavaunist [sic] pig assholes?

You can go fuck yourself, you pig.

One person at least had concern for my natural abilities:

I hope you’ve got a big dick, so you can go fuck youself. [sic] But you probably have a little tiny wang which is why you write this shit in the first place.

Ouch.

These were some of the best letters; of the ones I could share here. One, however, stood above the rest, as some woman saw fit to compose poetry, and wrote me a Hate Haiku. It was so funny I just had to share it with my Hyperion X readers. My only quandary is that I wish she wasn’t quitting! Acerbic wit this good has to come from intelligence, and ironically, I think I would really like this girl. Ah, well. Anyway, to close off this third issue of Hyperion X, I thought I would give you my very first Hate Haiku. May there be many more:

Your column sucks ass

You should be raped by pit bulls

Please remove my name

I think I’m in love.

Hyperion

May 31, 2003

Credits

Thanks to all the readers who read and write in, whether you love me or not

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