Dear United States Of America,

Do you see this picture? This is what we do to fucking Nazis. We don’t let them patrol the streets of our towns. We don’t call them a “civil rights group”. And we sure as shit don’t let them poison peoples’ minds by giving their TV network ratings and ad money.

Now, mind you, I’m aware that the company who owns the rights to the character punching Hitler in this picture don’t exactly tow the truth and justice line themselves. They royally screwed the guy who created Captain America for decades before Disney bought them, and it won’t get any better now that Disney does own them. But still, we all used to at least bullshit ourselves into thinking that right and wrong actually meant something. How about we all put a little effort into taking “right and wrong” back from the shit-shovellers in the propaganda division, the corporations and the government?

Just a thought.
-S

Dear Burger King,

Please stop embarrassing yourselves.

Love,
Scott

They’ve been on this downhill slalom of stupidity ever since the company went private again (Full disclosure: former shareholder here). Prices have skyrocketed, and they have this frat boy at a Lilith Fair mentality where they think that if they pretend to be sensitive, they’ll score with chicks.

Guys, wake up. Burger King is like the Rush of fast food. Not all women hate them, but there’s a special breed of women that like them and you’re stuck with (blessed with, in my opinion) those women.

If Burger King wants to make a comeback, I can think of a few ways they could do it. Open letter to anyone working for BK on Todd’s friends list (you never know):

1. Roll back the prices. There’s no excuse whatsoever for doubling prices on some menu items in a down economy.

2. Stop changing the fries every few years. Remember the old fries, the ones you were concerned were too much like McDonald’s before you tried to be “too much like McDonald’s” on purpose? We want those back.

3. Stop wasting cardboard. Wendy’s started doing it 6 months before you did, and it sucked there too.

4. I don’t think you need to be the Spike TV/Axe Body Spray of fast food, in fact, please don’t be that. However, those of us who do still eat at Burger King expect a certain vibe from it. It’s down-home without being “country”, it does not involve bright, California marketing exec-friendly colors, and it is kinda rugged and rough around the edges. The burgers are flame-broiled. That’s your hook, right? Let us see the grill. Show us some bricks in the interior of the restaurant. Working class folks don’t want Mary J. Blige singing about snack wraps, and to be frank, we kinda hate David Beckham’s guts. I don’t know if they eat at your restaurant or eat meat, period, but if they do and they’re game, give us Jim Gandolfini. Give us Brian Urlacher. Give us Jason Statham (actually, Statham’s vegan, I believe, but he’s not the only legit badass guy with an accent in the world; Tom Hardy?) if you really want an attractive British guy in your commercials. Tough, no bullshit, a little rough around the edges, but authentic and lovable. That’s how we see your restaurant and want to continue to see it, not that other shit.

5. Hot dogs: it’s time for one of the big 3 to step up and do them right. Partner with a leading organic meat company like Applegate Farms, who make great meats but don’t serve people slop. You want to embrace that delusion that women like to hear certain words in your marketing? How’s “organic” sound?

I’ll probably repost this over at my site and on my feed, but yeah, as a lifelong Burger King patron, this one’s kinda personal to me.

To whom it may concern, those who have vocalized their feelings on these matters so far and those who haven’t,
 
Fuck you to hell and back for thinking you have a goddamn thing to say about whether or not I’m disabled based upon how “able” I appear to you, or about how I should behave because I am disabled in order to make you feel ok about paying fucking taxes.
 
Would you prefer that I get a tattoo of the kind of agonizing fucking pain I experience internally when I’m at my most crazed, another one that’s a visual manifestation of the kind of oppressive inertia I have to wade through just to make it downstairs to feed myself most days, or yet another one of the fucking Jackson Pollock painting that a chart of my sleep and wake times looks like, just so it isn’t “invisible” to you?
 
Do you think being well-spoken or talented automatically translates to being sane, able or healthy?
 
Have you ever suffered from a neurological disorder that, at last count, 4 doctors in the world, none of whom are within 3000 miles of you, specialize in?
 
Would you prefer if I just shut up and took my crumbs rather than trying to derive any joy out of what’s left of my life, after decades of being alternately neglected, antagonized, abused and…shit, the words literally just fell out of my head. That happens all the time, by the way. It’s invisible, though. Oh yeah, marginalized and…nope, that 5th word’s still gone, from like 5 minutes ago…you get the idea, though.
 
Would you rather that I stop collecting benefits and suffer or just die, instead of spending your hard-earned tax dollars that would otherwise be spent on transvaginal ultrasounds, beating people who protest inhumane behavior by the government, bombing brown people, locking people up for smoking weed and/or felony interference with a business model, or Joseph fucking Lieberman’s salary?
 
You can do what you want after reading this, but I’m not going to stop being your friend if you have feelings that come within miles of any of the above, because if I do, it’ll be way too easy for you to continue to be this fucking wrongheaded to the other people in your life who bleed in any way similar to the way I do.
 
I am a living, breathing example of mental, emotional and neurological illness.
 
It’s not always easy to understand or process.
 
It sure as hell isn’t pretty.
 
It isn’t even visible most of the time because if it were, I’d be in a padded cell.
 
No matter how fond of me you are on my good days, your fondness will never erase how completely, royally and utterly fucked up I am, how I’ve been shit on for not being able to hold it together and work the fucking fields like you can, how I’ve struggled with it in the past, or how I will continue to struggle with it for the rest of my life.
 
No matter how “together” I seem, I’m really not.
 
The best part? You’ll love this, I’ve had it laying around for about 15 years as part of a stupid pop song I haven’t been able to finish because sometimes, I can’t even finish a stupid fucking pop song.
 
“All it’d take is one bad day to make you like me…”