Letters to Businesses.com

Your stores suck and you’re going out of business. Netflix is kicking your ass in the online arena because it took you about five years too long to roll out an online option for your customers.

However, hope is not lost. Follow me here.

Your stores are lame

Yeah, 1980 called, and they want to know WHY THE HELL YOU HAVEN’T MADE YOUR STORES COOL.

Do I have to draw you a diagram? Fine. Here.

Hey there’s a novel idea! Make your stores cool so that people enjoy the experience of going to them! Oh my god! What a genius idea!

You idiots probably need another diagram. Lets look at a SUCCESSFUL business, Starbucks, who sells a freaking cup of coffee for TWICE AS MUCH as you charge for a rental.

Oh my god, here’s a novel idea. Soft lighting.Comfortable atmosphere. Couches. A place people LIKE to go. Maybe a nice movie playing with some leather seating.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure this shit out but then again, that’s why your stock is tanking and you’re about to go under.

I know the guys in charge are a bunch of 60-year old gray haired moneybags who can’t tell an ipod from a jar of caviar, but jesus christ at least pay someone with a coolness factor of 7 or higher to consult you.

You had it all blockbuster. I loved you. Do you hear me? I LOVED you. But your store didn’t change over the past 20 years and I grewup. It’s time to grow up. Either that or its time to get kicked to the gutter.

Sincerely,
Mac

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Dear Old El Paso (and other distributors of Salsa worldwide),

I’ll keep this short and sweet. Please make your salsa jars half as tall, and twice as wide. I can’t fit my fucking chip into the jar assholes.

Sincerely,

Albert Fucking Einstein

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Dear McDonalds,

You invented the fast food industry. Starting out as a milk shake stand, you grew into a multinational corporation with billions and billions served. You gave birth to the drive through, and (somehow) made it a cultural icon. You single handedly drove the population of America to morbid obesity and yes, we’re lovin it.

But all is not well with your children, McDonalds. These are difficult times indeed. We’re fighting in Iraq with everything we’ve got and a lot of people are out there saying all hope is lost. I write to you in a time of great despair, when many of our basic freedoms are in danger.

Heed my call McDonalds, because the time has come to for revolution. What I am about to say may shock and perhaps disturb you.

McDonalds. I charge YOU with the task of adding a new sandwich to your menu. A revolutionary sandwich. A real game changer.

A sandwich with chicken AND beef.

You heard me right. I said chicken AND beef. For the first time in FAST FOOD HISTORY, chicken and beef will unite for a single cause: mass satisfaction.

I’ve worked tirelessly for days, drawing up blueprints, designing and re-designing, taste testing, going back to the drawing board, and engineering prototypes in my lab and have come up with the most efficient and delicious models feasible. I present the plans for these weapons of mass satisfaction to you, McDonalds, in the hope that you will liberate America and give us all we’ve ever really wanted. Chicken and beef on the same sandwich.

Below are the three sandwich prototypes that are ready for mass production and immediate distribution to your army of franchise restaurants.

Prototype 1: The Freedom Tower
This sandwich is pure genius. Take a Big Mac, and put Chicken Strips on top instead of more beef.

Just look at how the Freedom Tower stands tall, piled high with chicken and beef, as if to say “Eat your heart out, al-Qaeda , because it’s going to take a lot more than a couple planes crashing into a couple buildings to crush the spirit of chicken and beef, united.”

Prototype 2: Cock-a-doodle-beef
Take a Big Mac, but instead of a second patty of beef on top, put the same chicken patty you use for your Grilled Chicken sandwich.

In the old days, when farms were a decent type of business, run by good decent folk, the rooster’s call would wake the farm hands. A cock-a-doodle-doo would echo in the morning sunrise. Well, the roosters have been killed, processed, and molded into a patty for this sandwich, all so that we might wake up with a delicious cock-a-doodle-beef. I’m loving it.

Model 3: The Fatty
This sandwich is so simple its delicious. Take the classic Big Mac, but instead of a second beef patty on top, four glorious chicken nuggets piled high in the pursuit of happiness.

With the crispy crunch of the chicken nuggets, and the juicy squirts of grease from the beef, the Fatty is sure to satisfy in ways that you thought only hard drugs could.

And just to prove that people will actually eat it, I did the unthinkable. With my physician standing by, I took a deep breathe, swallowed hard, and took a bite out of the cock-a-doodle-beef. No, seriously. I have proof:

McDonalds, your mission is slated. The war on terror has come to your home front, with Wendy’s and Burger King actively seeking to oppress our basic freedoms, freedoms like chicken, and freedoms like beef. Unleash these weapons of mass satisfaction, and blow the competition into the stone age with a sandwich of epic proportions. Give our boys in Iraq a reason to fight; a reason to come home safe and sound. Give America chicken and beef.

Sincerely,
HUNGRY

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Dear Halliburton,

You are one smooth operator, I gotta hand it to you. When your CEO gets tapped to be the Vice President of the United States, you know your company is in for some good times! It was with dollar signs in his eyes that Mr. Cheney stepped down from CEO of Halliburton (with plenty of stock options) and stepped up to be the Vice President of the United States. We here on Wall Street had dollar signs in our eyes too.

The plan was so simple, so profitable, so diabolically lucrative. Cheney marches us into Iraq, and next thing you know, you’re awarded Billions and Billions of dollars worth of contracts. Halliburton, you dog. No one seemed to care too much whether or not we actually had a reason to go into Iraq, what with the trade centers recently blown up and all.

Weapons of Mass Destruction? Links to Al-Qaeda? Are these the reasons we went into Iraq? No! But one of those would do. And as the troops were ordered in, we all started buying Halliburton stock.

What we knew on Wall Street was that with your “Emergency Aid” contract with the government, you profited more and more with each emergency that occurred. In other words, you profited every time someone was shot… and killed. Follow me hear… all you had to do at that point to maximize your profit, was maximize the death toll…

Observe the Halliburton stock chart, over the course of the Iraq war.

See where it starts to go up around 7? The smart money bought there. With the ex CEO in the white house, and the country going to war, we were so excited to put our money down on Halliburton. A good lesson to all you newbie traders.
The smart money knew to simply play the death toll.

As long as this chart kept going up, we were buying buying buying. Our pattern becomes more transparent when you overly the stock chart with the death toll chart.

See, 20,000 fatalities meant the stock was still a buy at $20. 30,000 fatalities meant the stock was still a buy at $30. And then in 06 the contracts started to expire, and we long run was over.

But the smart money knew that Halliburton makes money every time someone gets killed in Iraq.

I want to thank you, Mr. Cheney, for buying me a new house. And a swimming pool. And a Ferrari.

The thing is, I really want a Gulf Stream IV personal jet. Mr. Cheney, I beg you, please get us into war with Iran. Hell I’ll even give you a commission off the millions I make. Think of it as payment for good will.

Godspeed Cheney. Godspeed.

Sincerely,

Wall Street

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Dear Wal Mart,

I want to thank you.

I was mindlessly flipping through the junk that comes with my Sunday newspaper when I found your flier for lunchboxes. It was there that I found a “Mom Tip.” It was Mom Tip # 37 to be exact and it told me to “pack a little note in the lunch bag.”

In case you don’t remember, here it is:

Thanks Wal Mart! Sometimes I wonder what I would do without all your fabulous parenting help. I really take comfort in the fact that I can always depend on a multinational corporation such as yourself for excellent advice on how to raise my kid. You know what they say, Wal Mart knows best.

But where on earth do your amazing maternal instincts come from? What are you, the illegitimate child of Sam Walton and Judy Bloom? Is there a little of good old Aunt Jamima in your blood?

What’s that Wal Mart? You’re the proud parent of not one but many children? I didn’t know! Perhaps it’s because most of them live in the third world. They’re the hard working children who sew your sweaters and package your socks for five cents a day. Why, here’s little Jimmy, hard at work making a sneaker:

Aww isn’t that cute. The little rascal looks focused. I wonder Wal Mart, what little note did you pack in his lunch today? Oh, wait, here it is!

You’re an All-Star parent Wal Mart! Mom of the year! Now I know where you find the inspiration for your Mom Tips. It’s the thousands of children you have just like little Jimmy! All the parenting experience has clearly taught you well. In fact, I wanted to gleam every last bit of wisdom you have on parenting, so I searched all over for the rest of your Mom Tips. Unable to locate any of the previous 36 tips, I was in despair.

But then I found it. Mom Tip Number One:

Inspiring. Literally. It inspired me to set up my own sweatshop right in my garage. My kid and his schoolyard chums come hang out and make sweaters for me. If they make less than 10 sweaters each, I hit them. If they reach their goal of 10 sweaters in a night, I give them an oreo cookie. I know, I know. You think I’m paying them too much, and for that I lower my head in shame. But hey, look on the bright side. By next year I’ll have a corporate jet to fly me around in style. =)

You know, I’m really coming around to the Wal Mart school of parenting. Keep the Mom Tips coming.

Sincerely,
CONCERNED

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Dear Pfizer,
It has come to my attention that your new CEO, Jeffrey Kindler, is the old CEO of McDonalds.

Wow! Going from Big Macs to selective seratonin reuptake inhibitors is quite a leap! Thinking about the jump Mr. Kindler has made, from selling billions of burgers to selling billions of drugs, I’ve decided that Mr. Kindler is uniquely experienced to get some great new sales strategies rolling.

I came up with a few quick suggestions. Here they are:

1.) Please offer a deep fried version of Xanax. It’s my favorite Pfizer drug and although Xanax is a great way to calm down, the taste isn’t so great. If you would be so kind as sell the McXanax, with the same golden brown crispy coating as a chicken nugget, that would sure make my day. Just make sure you use 100% all white meat… err… powder.

2.) I think you should release Happy Meals at my local Rite Aid, only these Happy Meals should come with a large Zoloft, a sampler pack of other assorted antidepressants, and a cool refreshing coke. Sometimes I feel a little down, and I’d love to be able to stop by CVS and grab a Happy Meal that really makes me happy. You know, the kind of happy you can only buy from Pfizer. They don’t need to come with a little plastic toy, but a McXanax wouldn’t be a bad substitute in case I get a little too happy and can’t fall asleep again.

3.) I think Viagra should come standard in all Big Macs. It would totally redefine the Big Mac name, and refute all claims that the flagship sandwich causes impotence. If I could eat a couple Big Macs before my wife gets home from working the gentleman’s club, and then go at it all night long, it sure would be an improvement from my current situation in which I eat a couple Big Macs and pass out from synchronic liver failure, kidney damage, and cholesterol toxicity.

4.) I think Ronald McDonald should be the new face of Pfizer For Kids. This would surely improve sales of your best drugs to customers between the ages of four and eight. My concern is that children are generally pretty happy, and might not realize that taking antidepressants such as Zoloft each day will make them even happier. This is hurting your sales and something must be done immediately. By positioning Ronald to push Viagra to 6 year old boys, you will have customers for life when erections become an impossibility without it.

5.) Finally I think Acupril should come loaded into all of McDonald’s premium sandwiches to help fight congestive heart failure before it starts. Being a McDonalds fan for years, I can tell you from experience that congestive heart failure is a real kick in the nuts, and something I’d rather not experience again. So how bout some Acupril in my Big Mac, please!

I think you will find that my suggestions will not only help Pfizer’s bottom line, but the strategic partnership between Pfizer and McDonalds outlined above will usher in a new era of delicious ways to self medicate.

sincerely,
Concerned

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Dear Warner Music,

Times have never been tougher for the music industry. People are swapping entire collections of digital music over the internet, iTunes came out of no where and just decided a song was worth a flat rate of a dollar, and no one wants to buy CDs anymore. The very industry is threatened. It would seem you need to innovate, to come out with your best in order to once again capture a disenchanted audience.

The music video is a robust media platform that is more popular than ever with sites like YouTube and a million others sharing millions of videos a day to an audience of millions of viewers. One would think that to capture back old fans, a great music video would be about right for the triumphant return of one of the greatest rock bands ever, the Smashing Pumpkins.

You made a video, I’ll definitely give you that.

I saw the music video tonight for the new Smashing Pumpkins song: Tarantula. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a cool song. I dig the tune. But something is missing, some creative force that makes art “art”. Could it be a visual journey that promises to take the viewer to strange and new places?

You be the judge.

Watch the music video for Tonight, Tonight: a Smashing Pumpkins song from 1996.

The plot of the video is amazing:

Noble men and women are about to embark on the maiden voyage of some crazy mechanical blimp, and its being celebrated like the fucking Titanic.

Cut to blimp flying through SPACE.

Cut to patrons of the voyage observing earth through telescopes.

Cut to patrons step out on the deck, flying through space, together. Cut to love.

Pepper video with Billy Corgan singing.

Cut to couple on new planet. Strange new creatures, geological formations, shooting stars, and oh no! Bad guys!

Cut to girl kicking bad guy ass with her umbrella.

The couple is now tied up by the creatures of the new planet.

The couple fights back with umbrellas, which seem to be their only weakness. They hop on a nearby rocket and blast off through space only to crash in to the ocean, float to the bottom where they are saved by a merman with a trident who looks like the little mermaid’s dad, just in time to witness the opera of the night, a strange ballet of a giant octopus and four mermaids who then float the couple up to the surface to a steam ship to be rescues.

Now let’s have a screening of the new Smashing Pumpkins video: Tarantula.

Begin with Billy Corgan dressed up like Princess Leia, standing on a stage with a handful of backup dancers singers and guitarists. Who are these assholes? I want the Smashing Pumpkins.

Chorus: still Billy Corgan with musicians and backup dancers.

Billy Corgan tosses the mic between his two hands.

Some dude plays guitar.

Red lasers shoot out of Billy Corgans eyes.

More people play guitar.

Nothing changes.

End.

What the fuck.

What is going on? I demand an answer. I mean, are you too fucking stupid to realize that creative and interesting videos are going to make YOU money?? Or do you just not want to make any kind of interesting and culturally significant contribution to society? Let me give you a tip. Fire the overpaid asshole who comes up with this horse shit, and hire back the guy that was in charge in 1996.

This is fucking garbage. Not acceptable. Didn’t you get the memo that in the 21st century, you can be artistic AND profitable? Are you so out of touch with the younger generation that you have no clue we’re craving visually stimulating music videos?

Sincerely,
MUSIC VIDEOS SHOULD FUCKING BE CREATIVE

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Dear Winston Cigarettes,

You guys are clever. Gotta hand it to you. If it was 1980 and my job was to hook every kid in the nation on cigarettes, well, I’d probably quit. But not you. Charged with the task of turning our nation’s youth into addicts, you faced a tough decision that couldn’t have been too popular (after all, what’s right is not always popular). You put your thinking caps on and a pack of Winston’s into Barney Rubble’s pocket. Bravo.

I really can’t help but wonder how many people have died because of this ad alone. I guess we’ll never know. I still think your marketing department should consult “Big Pharma” and have Pikachu peddle Ritalin or Adderall to the kids they’ve given ADD to.Sincerely,
Smoking since age 3

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Dear Package Store,

Explain to me again why you don’t sell condoms?  You do realize that almost every male purchasing liquor at your store is hoping to get lucky, right? And you do realize the markup on condoms is about 100% right?

So explain to me again why you don’t sell condoms.

Sincerely,
Really  confused

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Dear Apple,

You need to innovate the Ipod.

You see, like many people, I like to listen to my Ipod on “random” because it has the potential to play literally any song in my library. Its more like a radio station and will play songs I’m not expecting to hear, some of which I really like, some of which I really hate.

The only problem is my Ipod has no idea what songs I like, and what ones I hate. So let me give your tech department a tip, straight from an anthropologist.

Engineer your Ipods so that they rank each song based on how much of the song I listened to, and put them into a rotation that is dictated by my own interests.

For example, if I listen to an entire song, rate it a 10 and put it in heavy rotation. I can’t get enough of it.

If I listen to 90% of the song, give it a 9 and put it in slightly less rotation than the 10s.

If I listen to a song for a single second, and then fast forward it, repeatedly, chances are I never want to hear it again. So make sure your ipod doesn’t give it to me unless I ask for it.

By implementing this rating system, or some variation of it, whereby your Ipods know how much I like a song based on how much of the song I listen to, the Ipod can be a self serving radio station that knows how much I like every song in rotation, and plays songs more or less frequently based on how much it KNOWS I like them.

Now, lets say a song is rated a 10, and I love it. But the ipod starts playing it frequently so that I start to get sick of it. I’ll start fast forwarding it, and your Ipod will put it in lighter rotation.

This idea is genius, and if you don’t do it, someone else will. And their mp3 player will be better than the Ipod. Every time I push that fast forward button, I’m casting a vote. Your Ipod just doesn’t know it. So make it smarter.

Thanks,
Maybe switching to XM soon

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