Weekend Post #19: An Email from “Joe”

This weekend I got an email from an I Hate Star Wars Club members whom I will call “Joe.” This letter brings up a valid concern that many I Hate Star Wars Club members may share, so with “Joe’s” permission, I am reprinting it here.

Dear William Shatner’s #1 Fan,
Hi. I don’t really know how to begin this. There is so much I want to say to you. Let me just say thank you for all your hard work in the fight against the Star Wars Militia. I read your blog everyday. Every post is awesom (sic) so it’s hard to choose a favorite but if I had to pick it would the one about farting whenever someone mentions Star Wars. (Editor’s Note: “Joe” is referring to Weekday Post #17: Cures People of Star Wars Addictions Easy as “Clockwork.”) I try hard to always follow your advice. I tell at least three people every day that Star Wars sucks and I’ve asked the video store to stop carrying it. They still have a few copies but they used to have something like 100 copies of Revenge of the Sith but now they only have 10 or 20 so I’m making progress.

I’ll tell you a little bit about myself. I am a high school freshman in Raleigh North Carolina. I’m making a MySpace page right now. I am going to link to your blog as my #1 link! Are you on MySpace? I hope so. It would be awesom (sic) to be your friend on MySpace.

I need to do my homework for tomorrow. You can publish my letter on your blog if you want, but please don’t include my real name. My school is full of Star Wars Goons who beat me up in the cafeteria. They like to take my Star Trek insignia pin off my shirt and throw it in the toilet in the girl’s bathroom so I have to go in there and get all the girls mad at me. I don’t want the Star Wars Goons to see that I wrote to you or else I think they’ll beat me up even more. Anyways keep up the good work.
Your friend,
Ryan Harston

Thanks for the letter, “Joe.” First off, great job on starting to get Star Wars out of the video store. My advice is to not be satisfied with this partial success. Keep putting on the pressure until the store has thrown out all copies of Star Wars and replaced them with “like 100” copies of Star Trek. I recommend picketing the store with a sign that says, “Take Your Business to a Video Store that Doesn’t Rent Star Wars Filth!”

I chose to publish your letter because I thought other I Hate Star Wars Club members might have the same question about MySpace.com that you did. I’ve always thought MySpace.com was a webpage that only morons and losers used, but your letter makes me realize that it could be a great online tool for reaching the youth with my Anti-Star Wars message. Perhaps I should start a MySpace page. If I do, I will be happy to link to you as a “MySpace.com friend”, as well as any other I Hate Star Wars Club member.

By the way, “Joe,” you may have noticed that I did not honor your request to refrain from publishing your real on this post. The reason for this is simple—the I Hate Star Wars Club needs members who hate Star Wars more than anything else on Earth. The only way to develop this hatred is to get beat up by Star Wars goons every day in junior high and high school. You said in your letter that the Star Wars goons put your Star Trek insignia pin in the toilet. Well guess what, “Joe,” they used to put my face in the toilet! I used to have to go to class with poop in my hair thanks to those damned souls! So don’t look for any pity from me! If I helped you avoid the treatment that I received, your fiery hatred for Star Wars might eventually fizzle when your developing mind moved on to other pursuits.

Next time the Star Wars goons beat you up, bottle up that anger and store it somewhere deep inside. A lifetime of pent-up rage is a powerful tool and it is exactly the sort of weapon that the I Hate Star Wars Club will need in the months ahead when we fight the battle to destroy Star Wars once and for all! Remember “Joe,” this club is called the ‘I Hate Star Wars Club,’ not the ‘I Sort Of Don’t Like Star Wars Club!’ If I hadn’t suffered such consistent abuse at the hands of the Star Wars goons, I never would have had the internalized fury needed to organize this worldwide fight against Star Wars. In order for you to be a valuable part of this community, we need your rage. Take your daily beatings with pride. They are the means by which you will finally grow from a boy into a man.