Letters to Parade: An Open Letter To Parade Editor Janice Kaplan

Dear Janice,

Oh, for fuck's sake, Janice. I know you're a busy woman. I know you have a lot of things going on in your own life that probably make it difficult for you to make good editorial decisions about things like, say, accuracy. I've been there, really. For instance, in my first book, the narrator's age changes from 25 to 27 somewhere in the middle of the book. I didn't realize it until after the book was published and though the book has been reprinted a bunch of times over the last near-decade, I just haven't had the time to even bother to contact anyone at Pocket Books to let them know that rather salient issue. Nearly ten years! I know. It's crazy. But here's the thing, Janice. I also forgot to write the middle of the book, too, and, well, comparatively speaking, I just figured Ah, fuck it. Now here's the deal, Janice: your magazine is a weekly exercise in complete and utter unchecked fucktardery and after a while your editorial Ah, fuck it just doesn't cut it with me. You can claim Barbaro is alive when he's dead. I'll allow that. You can say Lindsay Lohan is clean and sober the very day she is arrested with coke. Fine. You can even declare that Bhutto is the key to Pakistan defeating terrorism even after she was killed. Okay. We all make horrific, dreadful mistakes.

But what you cannot do is fuck with Troy Aikman, the last half-way decent QB to come out of UCLA, and expect me to sit idly by. Don't know what I'm talking about? It's right here, in the fucktardathon known as Walter Scott's Personality Parade, where some absolute fucktard named Angie Simon of Wadsworth, Ohio asked:

Ex-Dallas Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman was blond during his playing days. Now, as an announcer, he has dark auburn hair. What's up with that?

Before I address the actual question and then your magazine's answer, Janice, let me ask you a question: How does it feel knowing people like Angie -- who must live inside an iron-lung and who must only have physical interactions with the aliens who come to her each night for scientific examinations prior to the oncoming invasion -- come to you as the definitive source for the world's most complex and unknowable questions? Edifying, I'd imagine. But you see, Janice, the problem here is that Angie apparently just purchased a color television this week. Because the thing about Troy Aikman that you need to know, Janice, is best shown visually. Here's a photo of Troy from college:

You'll note his hair color. But just in case you have a black and white monitor, Janice, let me describe the color found on his head. Comparing it to my box of 64 crayons, I'd describe it as...auburn. Or, you know, the same color hair he has right now, though I think he's now putting a little product in his hair, since, you know, he's not wearing a helmet all day.  

Here's something we can both agree on, I think: Troy wasn't a blond and he's not one now. It's not much of a controversy, not when you consider all the terrible things going on in the world these days, but just in the scope of how fucking awful Parade is on a week to week basis -- and it's bad for you, too, as I can attest since here I am, 38 years into my life and I am drawn to the magazine each Sunday like a junkie looking for a fix. Except that I'm kind of a sentient junkie, the kind who knows that the drugs aren't really doing good things for him. Like Bubbles in the last season of The Wire. And yet, and yet.

The problem is that Parade, under your stewardship, keeps jamming the heroin needle into my neck every fucking week with the utter fucktardism displayed. Like, you know, the answer your staff created in response to Ms. Iron-Lung's question:

Heck, Angie, lots of manly men change their hair color, and male professional athletes have been doing crazy stuff with their locks for years. Our best guess is that for his role as an analyst on Fox Sports, Troy wanted to look...well, more analytical.

Yes, Janice, that's what your staff came up with. I know. It's just fucking stupid. I totally agree. Oh, you want me to provide the answer for a correction? I'd love to!

Angie, adjust the tint on your television. And get out of the iron lung. You can walk, Angie, you can walk! Be free! Your entire life up until this point has been a terrible lie. Sorry for the error.

The issue here, really, Janice, is not the utter stupidity of the answer, or the stupidity of the question, or even the stupidity of not fact checking Troy Aikman's hair color, or even that the thing about football analysts is that they aren't really on the screen but for a few moments during a game and thus their hair color, or their bodies, or their broken faces (Dan Deirdorf looks like a blind person put his face together using a blowtorch and a hammer) are totally irrelevant to their audience. The issue here is that you are making America dumber every single week, Janice, and because of that the terrorists win. And every thing that nice pilot Sully did for America by bringing down that plane safely is lost. And Glenn Beck gets an erection that could cut diamonds. That's all on you, Janice. 

Best wishes,

Tod