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This is the temporary archive of jimmywellington.com. You may find that some pictures are missing, or you may see that formatting is a bit off. I'm just storing my old articles here while I move them elsewhere. The finished version will look all nice and stuff...

The new site will be here Jimmy Wellington. Well, it's already there, but all the articles will be there eventually.

An Open Letter to the Songwriters of "Save the Best For Last"

My goal for 2013 is to get something published at McSweeney's. I've been getting tired of satire writing for a while, which is why I barely do those types of pieces anymore. My plan is that if I get a piece rejected, I'm going to post it here, so at least a few people will read it. This is not meant in any way to be bitter at their rejection; I hold them in very high regard and expect to have most, if not all, submissions rejected. Please to enjoy:

An Open Letter to the Songwriters of “Save the Best for Last”

Dear songwriters:

First of all, I realize that I am a bit late in lodging my complaint about your song. I also realize that song lyrics cannot be taken literally. For example, Ke$ha’s song lyrics assert that one would enjoy having casual sexual intercourse with her even though I think I have contracted several sexually transmitted diseases simply by viewing her videos on my computer.

Even so, I have very serious problems with the lyrics to your song, as sung by Vanessa Williams in 1989.

The very first lyric is problematic: “Sometimes the snow comes down in June.” Sure, you’ve bought yourself some wiggle room by using the qualifier “sometimes,” but even with the effects of climate change more and more visible as time passes, how often has snow fell during the month of June? Need I remind you that when the song was written nobody knew who Al Gore was, and all our truths were convenient?

I decided to research this, turning to the world’s most reliable source for accurate information, Yahoo! Answers. According to the experts who frequent this site, it does sometimes snow in June. In fact, I’m told it “snows in the mountains all the time.” If we’re including mountains, however, I suppose a line like “Sometimes a plane full of soccer players crashes, and they have to eat each other” would be plausible as well.

So I’ll let the first line go.

Onto the second line: “Sometimes the sun goes ‘round the moon.”

Now, wait just a goddamned second.

The sun has never once in recorded history “gone ‘round the moon,” let alone “sometimes.” I’m not a scientist, but I’m pretty sure that if it did, some parts of Earth would get the shit burned out of them. If I had to guess, I’d think the parts of Earth affected would be “all of them.” There certainly wouldn’t be snow on the mountains in June, that’s for sure.

I mean, people who believe the Earth is six-thousand years old know that the sun hasn’t ever “gone ‘round the moon.” That’s right, the same people who think that Jesus rode a dinosaur know better. True, they probably believe that because “the Bible never said the sun went ‘round the moon” as opposed to basic physics, but still.

I’ve been told I should never complain about a problem without offering a solution, so I will offer a few suggestions for your song’s upcoming 25^th anniversary re-release. They are offered in descending order of similarity to the original line.

“Sometimes old satellites go ‘round the moon”

“Sometimes Alice Kramden goes to the moon”

“Sometimes a movie character played by Michael J. Fox howls at the moon.”

“Sometimes Mel Gibson calls a grip a ‘coon’”

Sincerely,

Jim Wellington

P.S. The rest of the song’s great. Good job.

Cash Business

I submitted this story to NPR's Three Minute Fiction, but it did not win. So, I'm sharing it with you. The prompt was to write a story in the form of a voice mail message.

Cash Business

Hi, so I’m just returning your phone call about the ad in Craigslist. I should probably tell you a little bit about my services. You asked a lot of questions about what I can offer you, so I hope I can answer all of them before the message ends. We’ll see. I don’t put much information in the ad because it’s a cash business, and I don’t want the wrong people asking questions, you know what I mean? For some reason, some in society still frown on what I do, but I think I provide a valuable service to people in need. At least that’s what I tell myself.

I typically do one client at a time, although sometimes people want group sessions. Group sessions cost more, as it’s pretty challenging to provide adequate service to more than one person at a time. I do have some experience with groups, so I can offer you better service than someone just starting out. As you can probably guess, someone in my line of work learns new techniques for providing clients relief. I am constantly searching for new tips, especially from Asia. You know their reputation, right?

I charge $100 an hour, and if you don’t need the entire hour, you still have to pay me for the time. Clients usually ask me to come to their house or apartment, although hotels work well too if you don’t want your neighbors to know that you’re hiring me. I guess some people still think that what I do is help you cheat.

Hiring the folks at Wal*Mart to fix the economy makes a lot of sense(If you don't really think about it)

The internet is filled with ideas that seem to make sense at first glance, causing them to be shared through social media, filling up your Facebook wall and Twitter feed with well-meaning, but illogical nonsense. Here's another one and why it doesn't really make sense.

Here's the original post in its full form. I've broken it down section by section below.

The person starts by telling us how big Wal*Mart is. Because it's big. Really big. I can quote big numbers too...

To the editor:

1. Americans spend $36,000,000 at Wal-Mart every hour.

1. People spend $1,484,018 on porn every hour.

2. That works out to $20,928 per minute.

2. That works out to $24,733 per minute. My number is higher because I can do math and the original author cannot. The inability to divide a number by 60 makes me slightly less than confident in his or her logical skills.

3. Wal-Mart is bigger than Home Depot+Kroger+Target+Sears+Costco+K Mart combined.

3. Porn revenue is larger than the revenues of the top technology companies combined. Those would be Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, Apple, Netflix, and EarthLink.

4. Wal-Mart employees 1.6 million people, it is the world's largest employer.

4. 102,434,567 people view internet porn.

5. Wal-Mart now sells more food than any other store in the world.

5. 35% of all internet downloads are pornographic.

6. Wal-Mart has approx. 3,900 stores in the USA, this is 1,000 more than it had 5 years ago.

6. 24, 644, 172 websites are pornographic.

7. This year 7.2 billion different purchasing experiences will occur at Wal-Mart. The earth's population is approximately 6.5 billion.

7. 68 Million search engine requests a day are pornography related. That adds up to 24,820,000,000 porn search experiences a year. The earth's population is approximately 6.5 billion, because that matters somehow.

You may think I am complaining, but I am really laying the groundwork for suggesting that maybe we should hire these guys who run Wal-Mart to fix the economy.

Well in that case, I think I have just laid the groundwork for suggesting that maybe we hire the guys who run porn to fix the economy. Unless, you know, the numbers you just said have no bearing on anything.

What if PBS' ratings go down?

Alex Jones thinks juice boxes are making kids gay

I don't typically re-post things from Facebook here, but I spend a lot of time on this, and I felt like giving it its own page. My friends posted this video from Alex Jones, talking about how juice boxes are making kids gay.



I wrote a very short story as a response. This is fiction.

When I was growing up, I loved girls. Girls, girls, girls, I just couldn't get enough. Sometimes, when Jenny Shanka would wear those red shorts when it was hot out and she would have to lean forward to get the papers to pass back to me, my desk raised up about 3 inches. And stayed there. 

That was before I knew about juice boxes. I used to get milk with my lunch. Then, one day, I forgot money to get milk. My friend Jim gave me his Capri Sun. I popped the straw in the foil hole, well more like fumbled around with trying to get the straw into that goddamn little hole for five minutes. Finally, I could take it no longer. I ripped the top open with my teeth and slurped the juice into my parched mouth.

I looked at Jim. "Thank you," I said. I could barely get out the second syllable because I was awestruck by his eyes. They were so blue. He said it was no problem, and I saw his dimples for the first time. How had I missed these dents of perfection for all these years? I was a mess of emotions. I had heard the rumors about juice boxes, and how once you go juice, you like it in the caboose, but those were just boys being boys while flicking each other with towels in the locker room. Right?

Right?

In physics, Jenny was wearing the red shorts. Not only that, but I swear she had rolled the legs up an extra inch. For me? Dare I dream? Bobby Jacobs, the guy who sat in front of Jenny, was absent, so Jenny stood up and bent over as far as she could to grab the paper. As she did, she looked over her shoulder at me. And winked. I quickly slammed my hands on my desk, knowing that if I didn't, it would hit the ceiling. She touched the corner of her mouth with her tongue and slowly brought it to the other side. When she handed me the stack of papers, her hand lingered on mine for a second that seemed to last as long as a...

Second. I felt nothing. My desk stayed still. What had happened? 

I didn't know what to feel. My world was crashing down around me. I looked over at Jim. He smiled at me. 

My desk moved.

New TV Show Pitches

If Here Comes Honey Boo Boo can be a show, I can create a show too. Here are some ideas.

Because, come on. Everyone wants to get sex advice from the Dowager Countess.

From the creators of Lost comes a time-travel romantic comedy where if you don't fit in, just jump to a different time! Just watch for nosebleeds.

Even AIG wouldn't insure this show.