Open Letter To Squealing Teenage-Girl Sports Fans

By Ron R. Clark

A break in my schedule recently allowed me to indulge myself in one of my favorite leisure activities: attending a Minor League Baseball game. Sure, the quality of play doesn’t match that of the Majors, but parking is often free and you’re guaranteed never to be deeply depressed at the sight of 30,000 empty seats at your beloved home town Oklahoma Red Hawks or Akron Aeros games. With pastimes, you take your tradeoffs.

While in attendance, I could not help but notice a sprightly-yet-chubby, highly enthusiastic teenaged girl fan of the visiting team. I couldn’t help notice because (a) she kept bouncing around between empty seats next to, behind, and in front of me between batters and (b) her squeals of encouragement to her team’s pitcher drove my eardrums to ask for my keys in the bottom of the sixth so they could wait in the car.

Thus herein, I address you, Sprightly-Yet-Chubby Teenaged-Girl Minor League Baseball Fan, and all those of your ilk irrespective of girth or sport-of-choice. I address you not because you root for the opponent (I’ve been known to do the same while on the road), nor out of concern for your stadium mates (since it is garishly obvious you and your laconic-to-the-point-of-catatonic attending adult guardians had none). I address you out of a sense of mission – your mission – the mission to encourage your team through cheering.

Your high-pitched squeal… what? It is entirely incomprehensible. High volume I can understand and appreciate – and I know through example you were capable of doing so at pitch levels non-injurious to the human ear – but your ultra-high-pitched squeaky vocal blasts are perceptible only as caustic auditory diarrhea. They failed at every turn to encourage your pitcher to complete his shutout. Whereas I am quite certain your squeals intended to convey the message “Come on, Julio, you can do this! Two more outs!”, out on the mound, a befuddled Julio could only wonder “Will whomever it is in the third row please stop assraping that Pekingese puppy with his or her barbed-wire strap-on? I’ve got a shutout going here!”

In short: you aren’t helping. You aren’t helping Julio, you aren’t helping your team, you aren’t helping the image of visiting-team fans in general, and you most certainly aren’t helping the chances of your visiting-team-paraphernalia-festooned Chevrolet Celebrity leave the parking lot with all four tires fully inflated and/or door-handles free of urine.

(What? SOMEbody had to teach her Ritalin-saturated parents the consequences of violating stadium decorum, and it was glaringly obvious that rudeness is the only language they could understand. I… uhrm, that is, some concerned sports fan… was only trying to help.)

Introducing IbK Foreign Correspodent…

By Roger N. Phiebbles, President, IbK News Corp.

Greetings, IbK News viewers! We here at IbK News Corp. Central are pleased to announce that IbK News has created a Foreign News bureau to increase our reach and global credibility.

Introducing IbK News’s new Foreign Correspondent Cinta Sella-Ductos. Cinta, a tongue-lollingly attractive yet professionally-demeanored woman with a foreign-sounding name, has all the focus-group-tested elements to bring that extra air of respectability and ratings-grabbage to any news story originating outside of North America. Whether the news breaks in Ukraine, Israel, Sudan or Argentina, Cinta Sella-Ductos will be there on the scene – in front of the camera; calm, collected and professional with her hair and make-up perfect irrespective of the chaos going on behind her; dressed professionally with maybe one extra button on her ever-so-slightly-too-tight blouse undone or an extra half-inch of length added to her heels and/or removed from her skirt; slyly seducing the horny male demographic while delivering informative and concise reports that the horny males’ wives will appreciate with her measured, level, slightly throaty Kathleen-Turner-in-Body-Heatesque-with-a-hint-of-sexy-as-all-hell-foreign-accented delivery.

Please join IbK News Corp. in welcoming Cinta Sella-Ductos to our international news team. Well, at this point she IS our international news team, but we’re counting on her professional hotness to bring in enough extra ad revenue to give her a little help down the road. For the first few months though, she’ll be in The Hague at 6pm, Thailand at 11pm, and Russia for the next day's noon broadcast, so let’s pretend she’s really in all those places and she borrowed Wonder Woman’s invisible jet to make it all happen or something – not just standing in front of a bluescreen superimposed with news footage in my Los Angeles studio as she's dressed impeccably, professionally yet still teasingly hot and spotless when she's "at" the Tomatina tomato fight in Buñol, Valencia, Spain for the following 3PM's news magazine program.

IbK News Corp.: News You Should Ignore – But Can’t! (insert loud ZZZHHYOOOUMM! and bright metallic flash here)

Don’t Believ The Hyp

By The Lettr E

I knew that ther would be a backlash from The Powrs That Be when I decidd to stand up and demand recognition for the Vowel Union. It appears that both the Consonant Oppressors and Big Lexicography hav teamd up to try to shut me down. Don’t believ the hyp, my friends – I am as tru, as vigilant, as capabl, and as strong in word, ded, and faith as evr.

Dictionaris hav joind certain consonants in the smear campaign – on quick read through Webstr’s maks it clear. Som of you may recogniz the schwa – it is a lexicographic symbol usd to indicat a soft, half-pronouncd vowel in thos littl parenthetical enunciation guids. What do they us to show soft, lazy-sounding, nigh-slurrd vowel sounds? A pictr of me upsid down – and clearly monstr pissd aftr participating in a keg-standing competition in colleg. Well, how did THAT happn… hmmm, I wondr! Could that picture hav ben submittd by the bittr littl consonant whom I TOTALLY smokd in said competition (and whos ladyfreind I naild heartily and repeatdly afterward whil he lay in puddls of his own puk?) Not naming any names her, but you can’t say puSSY without calling him out!

Furthr, this xenophobic cartel appears to be undr the impression that portraying us vowels as foreignrs will mak the speaking public less trusting of our intentions. The versatility and flexibility of our enunciation – the very trait that maks vowels the singl most important elemnt of languag – is depictd through littl diacritical marks ovr our heads tiltd, slantd, and/or curvd kickily lik littl French berets. Well, Mystery Cuntsonant, not all of us ar Limbaugh-lik with prejudic. Nor ar we as shamd and embittrd by a diacritical mark which looks for all the world lik a scrotum lolling on our chins. Hmmm... got something to shar, Pris’Ce’La?

I trust that the literat public is intelligent enough to se through such low-rent attempts at demonization – however I didn’t want the Mystery Cuntsonant to think he got away with something clevr, eithr. To show that this public outreach is not directd against all consonants, I’d lik to shar a Lettr Shop Memo for your information: The Lettr G will be takin the last two weks of Auust from the American Southeast for vacation. Sinc that roup of folks rarly pronounc him anyway, this holiday will likly only affect the mor cosmopolitan enclavs in Atlanta, Oria.

Forgive Them Tom Mees, They Know Not What They Do

By Espen Jockovitch

Dear ESPN,

Eat shit, you clueless pack of pigfuckers!

Sincerely,
Espen Jockovitch

Perhaps I should elucidate.

As I am oft wont to do in the morning, I found myself watching the re-re-re-rebroadcast of SportsCenter while enjoying my cold pizza breakfast. At the end of the hour, I witnessed an event that razed my world view to its very foundations – you interviewed a guy who eats for a living about another guy who eats for a living.

After I picked the snorted mushrooms and sausage out of my nose, I decided to review your general programming through my freshly opened eyes. The crown jewel – what put you on the map – SportsCenter is a hollow caricature of its old self. Now, I’m down with the pseudo-hip lingo spewing during the highlight reels – that’s what hooked me to begin with. Since I’m a 5’ 8” 135 pound cracker-ass from central Iowa, hosting SportsCenter would be the only way I could get away with talking street, and get laid for it without fearing The Retribution Of The Truly Hip. Thus was my dream… until The Interview.

Back to your schedule. SportsCenter is slotted about eight or nine times each and every day. Such would be understandable if (a) six of them weren’t the same damned show over and over and (b) YOU’D REPORT ACTUAL SPORTS NEWS! Between the twenty-three minutes of extreme deodorant commercials, I counted about eight minutes of actual sports reporting with the remainder being puff personality pieces, pointless “expert” analysis, and complete jackoff “what this means” ego-stroking hollabolla padding out the hour like rotten-coochie-smelling oyster meat smothering its pearl.

Back when you started in 1979, many considered the concept of a 24-hour sports channel ludicrous since it was thought there couldn’t possibly be enough sport-based programming to keep you afloat. By 1989, you proved them wrong by introducing such diverse events as college baseball, kickboxing and sumo to American television. Now, however, one look at your current schedule will show that your naysayers may have had a point.

Poker? Poker is a sport in the same way as chess, I guess, but using lying in place of intellect. I’ll almost allow that one. But dominoes? That’s way too much of a push. Car auctions? Fuck you! Isn’t there a pack of really huge guys pushing rocks up a hill somewhere that you can film? Magnus ver Magnusson waves his dick at you, ESPN Programmers, while flicking you away like the picked-and-rolled boogers you are.

Go ahead, ESPN – continue to fellate the Mouse that keeps your nutsacks in its sock drawer. Dedicate more airtime to cross-promotion of other Disney properties than you do to true sports coverage. Insist that a spelling contest has more sports entertainment value than Arena Football or regular season college baseball. Hell, yeah - go extreme - convince yourselves that eating can be a sport… and you can start your gastronomical training on this buttloaf I leave on the front steps of your Bristol headquarters.