DAVID SEDARIS REPLIES

July 18, 2015
442 We're All So Gifted Court
East Hampton, New York  $$$$$


To The Author of Goat Soup Radio:

You are an idiot. Did you think composing that letter in my name would get you any closer to the kind of name recognition, untold riches and all those high fives that I always receive walking down Broadway?

Well, it was a cheap trick Mr. Goat Soup and it’s not leaving the station any time soon. All you’ve got left is a one way ticket to Deletesville and the zip code is UCANTWRITEFORSHIT!

Do you think knowing a little French or telling me some sob story about your anonymous, pathetic little family is going to get me to invite you over for a little Entenmann’s and hot chocolate? I haven’t spoken to my mother in 40 years. Why should I let some nasty, gnarly, neuron negative gnome into my house who thinks they can just place their fingertips over a keyboard and have something witty and useful run down their hairy arm from that puny brain stem of theirs? Truman Capote tried and he never got past my doorman.

It’s true, I do know Larry David. He’s a sweetheart. All you have to do is ask and he’s always willing to pull out his birth certificate and DNA mapping report. He knows who he is, do you? As an aside, you can see from Mr. David’s chromosome 12 that he was destined to wear glasses and tell lots of funny stories about his less gifted friends. You should be so genetically endowed.

So now let me say a few well placed, succinct, golden, mellifluous, melodious, rhythmic, well-pitched sentences about your work.

Yes, I am very proud of you for choosing the English alphabet to create your words and sentences. However, as my creative writing teacher Mrs. Mcgillicuddy used to say, just because you know the letters of the alphabet doesn’t mean diddly squat if all you have is the literary aptitude of chalk. Editors Note: Merriam Webster Dictionary. DIDDLY SQUAT. slang. the least amount. anything at all. 

I would suggest, in the clearest possible terms, that you forego writing and find something more in line with your abilities. Perhaps looking straight ahead or sitting in a chair? Remember your best mate (that’s Australian for friend) in the sixth grade, “Bad Maddy Waddy”? Well, Maddy moved to Maine and makes mashugina moose magnets. She’s found her lot in life. She’s happy in a downtrodden kind of way. Don't you want to be like Maddy?  Shouldn’t you move to northernmost Maine?

I will admit that some of your stories do have potential. Your awkward attempt poking fun of the highly admired “September is Brush Your Tongue Awareness Month” campaign did have its moments.  However, why pick on such a time honored and revered undertaking that is meant to save many innocent victims: those that are young or old, dating or just hooking up, those that gargle and those that freely choose not to. Why should anyone have to live with the embarrassing and sometimes deadly stigma of a wayward tongue with no possible hope of cure or redemption? 

Not that I am speaking from any personal experience here but it may just do you some good to use the web for something other than looking at meerkat porn. Why not spend some time reading about all the wonderful medical breakthroughs they’ve made at the David Sedaris Millennial’s Hospital for the Torn and Tattered Tongue? What they can do with cleaned up roadkill these days is just amazing!

So here’s to you, Goat Soup Radio (whoever you are). Go do something else and leave the humor and wit to those like myself who are truly gifted, young, firm and free.

Never yours, never will be,

David Sedaris