Friday, February 11, 2005

An Open Letter to the Editors of AARP.org

Dear Old People:

I know you've had a rough life. I know that when you were children, you had to walk to your little red schoolhouse in three feet of snow, uphill, both ways, in July. I know that you could go to the cinema with a nickel in your pocket and a ladyfriend on your polio-shriveled arm, buy candy, popcorn, and filet mignon for the both of you, and still walk out of the theater with change in your pocket. I know that you scrimped and saved so that your children and grandchildren wouldn't have to grow up farming dirt and eating stray turnips. You've made your point: you need a break.

But jesusfreakingchrist, people, can't you at least find a couple of decent writers for that abortion of a travel website you host? This pablum-filled article on New Orleans is littered with every lame cliche about the city we call home, not to mention some rather startling inaccuracies. Namely, the French Quarter's architecture isn't French, it's Spanish. And for goddess' sake, they're called streetcars, not trolleys. And frankly, I think the use of "swimming" to describe the preponderance of live oaks in the Garden District not just odd, but overwrought.

It doesn't sound to me like this schmuck even visited the city. No, it sounds to me like he sat at home on his lazy, wrinkled, 87-year-old ass and pieced together some info from other crappy travel sites and from conversations he had over lutfisk with a bunch of his pals from the First Lutheran Church of St. Paul who had a one-day stopover in New Orleans on a bus tour last spring. (Hey, if he can stereotype, so can I.) I understand that you need something simple and exciting and short for your increasingly senile readership, but goddamn, that's just offensive.

I'm gonna let it pass this time, but if I ever hear of you encouraging people to call New Orleans "The Big Easy" again, I'm gonna hop in my car, drive straight to Des Moines or Terre Haute or wherever you fuckwads live, and cut your flaccid, flaccid penises right off.

Sincerely
The Sturtle

P.S. No, I'm neither a member of AARP nor a reader of your magazine. It was Tyler who brought your hideousness to my attention. You can thank him yourself.

P.P.S. Yes, I'm switching to decaf now.

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