LITERARY MEGRIM

Dear VH1 Executives

by
Nick Jezarian

Dear VH1 Executives,

So I come home last night and find you’ve commissioned your official nostalgia buffoons to muse about 1999. What the fuck is that? Can I have a moment to breathe here? I felt as if I came home and found my mom in bed with the postman [Note: Mr. Jezarian did not work for the U.S. Postal Service].

I’m royally pissed. I was hoodwinked into buying your two-bit 80s rap, thinking we were both having fun, comparing notes, remember this, remember that, ha ha, yeah, great. I stopped thinking about the fun things that I like to reminisce about with friends over a beer because I was doing that with my new best friend, VH1, you and I, decadal anthropologists. Then it hits me: all along, you were just diverting me into completely ignoring all the fun things that made the 90s good for me, so I couldn’t spoil your rap.

I’ll grant you, your series of manufactured 80s nostalgia provided a forum for discussion and “Oh yeahhhhhhh”s and a decent reason to get high. Additionally, it provided a great service to the public by providing a place for former civil servants to feel wanted, such as Dee Snider, David Lee Roth, Jordan Knight, and Punky Brewster (despite her breast reduction). But the 90s are transparent, VH1. I know “I Love the 90s” is nothing more than a vain and megalomaniacal attempt to one-up everybody. “We have to get to it before someone else beats us to it,” I can hear Mr. VH1 screaming. BANG! What’s that, you ask? That’s the sound of a backfire, bitch! You are now my nemesis. Old man, consider yourself nemesisized!

This is not a role I embrace with delusions of victory, mind you. It is more equitable to consider me the Wile E. Coyote, super genius, to your zany, nonsensical Road Runner. I will be forced to watch in vain as you zoom zoom zoom ahead into decade after decade, meep meep meeping all the way, pointing out the obvious before the viewers have a chance to think for themselves. I will frantically try to warn others and trip you up but you are unstoppable, much like the Road Runner. You zoom along, inconsiderately speeding on the nostalgia road intimidating other roadside dwellers. Well, no more!

Time’s running out suckers, there aren’t that many years left, so your ass is grass. Live it up with the 90s, go ahead. Let Michael Ian Crack talk smack about Y2K, but know this—you gave up your advantage. Talking about things the majority of people don’t remember from the 80s was brilliance. Most viewers only remembered half of the nonsense on the screen so the jokes flew and were witty. That tends to happen when people have only vague memories of what you’re talking about—they laugh uncomfortably to play along. But you, oh-h-h-h-h-h-h-h you (please read this in the voice of Judge Smail from Caddyshack), drafting witticisms about things that are fresh in people’s minds was your fatal mistake. If I can remember it, and your jokes don’t nail--crap! You created too small a margin of error for yourselves. If you cut off at ’94, maybe ’95, I think you’d be alright but in your frantic desperation to corner the 90s market, you farted in the face of your viewers. Sure, your ratings were at an all-time high but that’s only because people watch for 15 minutes before realizing the show sucks! Not to mention if five more people watch one night, your ratings are up. Hey, 2004 is almost over, I hope you have your material ready, you might be able to get it up and running for next week.

VH1, I’m ashamed for you.

Disgruntled but still watching only because it’s like a train wreck,
Nick Jezarian

P.S. Play some frickin’ videos, will ya? A few videos never hurt nobody.

P.P.S. I’ve enclosed my resume in case you decide to go a different route with your hosts

Nick Jezarian is equal parts man and machine.