the Hyperion Chronicles

“It’s funnier if you’re me”

#119 Three Monkeys, Ten Minutes

There’s a great old joke, best illustrated in the popular Dilbert ä comic strip. Dilbert is showing his sarcastic dog, Dogbert, a poem he has written, and asks Dogbert for feedback:

DOGBERT: I once read that given infinite time, a thousand monkeys with typewriters would eventually write the complete works of Shakespeare.

DILBERT: But what about my poem?

DOGBERT: Three monkeys, ten minutes.

Scott Adams, Dilbert comic strip, 15 May 1989.

Which brings me to the Hyperion Chronicles. Many readers have asked me what goes into writing these columns. (Coincidentally, many other readers have written to answer that question for me and offered that in their opinion, not much.) But, sometimes it’s good to go behind the curtain and see what the great and powerful Oz looks like. (And, I suppose, for those who have met me, the answer would again be “not much”)

I write this column for two reasons: because I have things I want to say, and to make women fall in love with me. So far I’m doing better at one than the other, but you’ve got to have a mission statement. I don’t have a topic or a category that I write about, although if you’ve been reading awhile you will see certain themes. I write about what interests me. The hope is, either it interests you too, or I will at least write well enough that you’ll be awake to read it to the end.

Of course, things don’t always work out. I have plenty of people who write me each week to tell me I’m a no-talent hack. And these are the people who like me. The rest of you often write in to suggest that I break my keyboard and throw away all my pens, and gouge out my eyes just to be safe: so that I can’t accidentally write any more columns. (The whole gouging my eyes out thing makes me wonder: if a thousand rednecks shot at a thousand stop signs with a thousand shot guns for an infinite amount of time, could they reproduce the works of Shakespeare in Braille?)

The thing that upsets people the most is when they are offended by something. And this can be anything. My grandmother and mother always write to tell me not to swear (I would be disappointed if they didn’t), but other people get offended by things I never would have predicted. For example: I’ll bet you five chicken biscuits that someone reads the previous paragraph and writes to tell me I’m making fun of blind people. (Or rednecks, but most of them can’t read, so I think I’m safe) Another one: I wrote several weeks ago about how Magic Pygmy Rabbits secretly run the world, and sure enough: someone who owns a pygmy rabbit wrote to tell me I was offending her by implying her rabbit was part of a nefarious cabal. I wanted to write her and tell her the rabbit had obviously gotten to her, but I didn’t. Very often I’d like to write people back and tell them to “go to hell,” but my mother told me that wasn’t polite. That mother of mine: what would I do without her?

Which brings me to a problem I have: while I get letters all the time telling me I’m going too far, I think I am not going far enough. I get so mad at myself each time I cut something out that I think a large segment of my general audience won’t go for. On the other hand, I don’t live in a vacuum (although I suppose I do suck on occasions), and I can’t just blithely write whatever I feel like with no consequences.

Or can I?

In an effort to make everyone happy, I am launching a new column: HyperionX. This will be me, uncensored. If I feel like going over the top and advocating the death all South Americans or something, I want to feel free to do that without offending too many people. But this column will only be available if you write and ask me to be on this mailing list. That way there is no way you can accidentally get these separate musings. Write me at hyperionchronicles@shaw.ca, which is going to be the new address of the regular column come Monday, so please reset your Spam adjusters to include it.

As for the regular column, I’m got going to turn into a complete milquetoast. I’m still going to write about what interests me, and if I’m mad one day about something I’ll write about that. I will still at times have an edge, because I always have, and that’s the Hyperion you’ve come to know and love (or come to hate and write telling me so all the time, but I think it amounts to the same thing). I just will be trying not to go over the edge, and if I feel a bout of extremely dark humour coming on, I will channel that into HyperionX.

Now, as for the people I’ve offended up to now, I would like to issue a blanket apology. I would like to say I’m sorry for making fun of your son, daughter, appearance, place of birth, religion, choice of hair color, or favorite musician (except if you like Barbra Streisand, of course, because then you deserve all the ridicule I can muster).

I would also like to apologize if you’re having a bad day or if your husband left you for a yoga instructor. I would like to apologize for the traffic jam you sat in Wednesday, the bad weather that ruined your picnic, and your mother-in-law. I would like to say I’m very sorry for war, famine, pestilence (I don’t even know what that is, but I’m sorry for it), disease, hunger, ugliness, Ghostbusters 2, terrorism, incontinence, your underachieving kids, the Red Sox not winning the World Series, and Yanni.

I’m sorry for all of it, world. I hope we can now put this matter behind us and move on together. Or, if not, you can always go to hell.

Doing my best—or worst—depending on how you look at it,

Hyperion

May 02, 2003

Credits:

Many thanks to all the people I sounded off on with this idea

Many thanks to all the haters who write me such venom: you keep me going

Thanks to Tootsie for Editing