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Rob Whang and the Gregarious Graying Geezers By: PoisonRamune, the Apathetic Lizardman Back in the 80’s and 90’s the building I currently work at, used to be a poster printing company. They would advertise extensively in magazines and comic books often showcasing a myriad of their most popular posters. In the middle of the 1990’s the company dissolved due to the decline of sales in large scale commercial posters/lithographs (coincidently, one of the CEO’s at that poster company was David Colburn, who was made famous in the AOL-Time Warner stock scandal a few years back. Yes, I’m pretty sure that he’s in jail for “round-tripping” those shares). Despite the fact that the poster company has been out of business for almost 15 years, I occasionally receive mail addressed to them. While most of these letters are requests for updated prices and catalogues, I do get a small percentage of very outlandish and down right creepy letters from various people. The bizarre letters are seemingly written by older gentlemen from the east coast, as noted by their use of italicized typewriters and non-internet tainted writing. The following is a collection of the best (or worst depending on your point of view) letters that were sent to the poster company. Received: November 2007 First off, I find it funny that this man considers a 27 year old poster and its contents “of the greatest importance and urgency.” I mean, granted that this guy lives in some sort of time-warp it still makes me wonder as to why this guy had never thought of drafting this letter any sooner. The man’s overall description of the burger is also very funny, as I’ve seen all the mentioned posters sometime before. I must say, the poster is not very well designed. I truly wish I hadn’t thrown out all the rotting pallets of posters in the back so I can prove how blasé this burger drawing was. POPCORN?! Who the hell puts popcorn in a sandwich? That’s besides the point and I won’t judge people for having awful tastes in food. I have a hard time figuring out if this letter is written by some guy trying to be funny or someone who’s somewhat touched and genuinely wants to know that last layer is. Either way, I found it cute how he described a mundane poster of a cartoon styled hamburger with the enthusiasm of a boy on Christmas morning. Received: November 2007 This letter has so much charm I simply don’t know where to start. His script font typewriter is so endearing, to the point where I would buy one of these the second I’m considered a creepy old man by society. More so, I enjoy the fact that this man felt he needed to add an air of legitimacy to his request by listing out his longtime service in his local fire department. That’s almost as inane as me explaining to the clerk at the BestBuy, why I chose to buy some DragonBall Z movie. While reading the man’s proposed ideas for new posters, I can almost feel the excitement this guy must have felt while coming up with each idea. Sadly, he must have felt like Eugene Peligot discovering uranium as he drafted that letter. Received: January 2008 Out of the 3 letters I’m showcasing, this one actually scares me and I literally mean it scares me. Not only is this guy describing the poster in the most exquisite detail, but it's subtly perverted as well. The line about Janet’s zipper placement is so strangely sensual in description. I can only imagine an older black or white man with a “black fetish” shining his rifle to this poster. No wait, I don't want to imagine that... DO NOT WANT!!! Despite the overt creepiness in all of these letters there's something about them that's very internetesque. While even I will post some obtuse question such as asking the title of a game from the mid 80's based on a very loose and vague description. Perhaps if these men were born in a later era they would have just been a handful of the millions of net drones in the world. I know you're one and so am I.
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