3/24/07

McSweeney's Rejected Submissions #1

I've decided I'm going to try to write something for McSweeney's. If you haven't read the stuff there, go do it now. Some of it is hilarious, and some of it will leave you scratching your head and thinking, "Huh?" It's that sort of writing, and I love it. I've never submitted anything there before, and I'm sure I'll collect a virtual pile of rejection e-mails in the process, but I figured I would post my rejects here on the blog, you know, since it's mine and all that. Here's my first rejected attempt:
Via E-mail, The Real Spiderman Addresses His Issues With The Movie Franchise of the Same Name
Sam, I realize your third Spiderman movie is due out soon, and you're probably wondering why I didn't come forward with my concerns earlier. Well, to be honest, I thought I could just ignore it, but my therapist has convinced me otherwise. He said that the only way I'm going to get past this is if I learn to deal constructively with my anger. That being said, I'd like to get a few things off my chest. First of all, Kirsten Dunst??
Seriously?
Listen, I've been married to Mary Jane for a long time now, and Kirsten Dunst is no Mary Jane, I can tell you that. In case you haven't noticed, Mary Jane is a hot model. Just for the record, Kirsten Dunst is not a hot anything. Secondly, Tobey Maguire looks like a nice kid. You might want to have him hit the gym a little more. Just a suggestion. Also, I know you'll find out about this on Monday, so I wanted you to hear it from me first. It's not something I'm particularly proud of. Last night, I had a few too many and I tracked down the casting director and well ... I webbed his ass shut. I'm not normally that violent by nature, but please understand. You have no idea how tired I am of hearing MJ bitch about it. If I have to hear "I do NOT look like that flat-faced cow" one more time, I'm going to climb the fucking walls. More so. Casting problems aside, do you want to know the one thing that really bugs the shit out of me? This whole organic webbing concept of yours. Somehow, you arbitrarily decided that the movie version of me can just shoot organic webbing directly from his wrists. That is so disgusting to me that I can't even think about it -- not to mention the fact that it completely marginalizes my college degrees in chemistry and engineering. Do you think I just ordered the plans for my web shooters from the back of Popular Mechanics? Well, I didn't. I spent six long, painful years in college learning what I needed to know in order to build my web shooters from scratch -- and this Maguire kid gets to just "magically" squirt webbing? Fuck that, Raimi. I thought we were friends. The least you could do is invite me to the set for a consultation, but have you?
No, you have not.
And that, Sam, is truly what I am most upset about. You know I don't make much money taking pictures of myself for that dickhead Jameson. You know where I live -- you've been to my apartment for Christ's sake. I could have used a little help here, but no, instead you hire that asshole Johnny Storm as your so-called "consultant." He lives in a penthouse at the top of his family-owned building and he doesn't even know me. And so far, I haven't seen dollar one of those royalties you promised me. You know what? I'm done with this. I'm done with you. This whole deal sucks. I hope you get hit by a car, you greedy son of a bitch. Sincerely, Peter Parker Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman ps - nice CGI job on the alien symbiote costume.

11 comments:

  1. Anonymous11:22 AM

    Brilliant!
    I love McSweeney's and Dave Eggers is one of my favorite authors.
    Good luck. They'd be fucking retards to reject you! ;)

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  2. I don't comment here often but I gotta say you make me laugh every time there is a new post.

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  3. Johnny my lad, I'm in full support of your submission. Except for one thing: Kirsten Dunst is hot. She's very hot. She's the most attractive pebble-toothed, saggy, vapid, burn victim I've ever met.

    What's that you say? She's not a burn victim?

    ...I... I just assumed. Well, in that case I'll have to de-handicap her score and...

    Oh yeah. Ugly as hell. Nevermind. My bad.

    - Scott

    P.S. I agree about the web. What the hell? (Although on some level it was relieving to not have to worry about him running out all the time.)

    P.P.S. If they don't accept the submission I have a bad feeling about the stability of their site. Heh. Just a "feeling." Just a "suspicion."

    ...I'm going to bring it down.

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  4. "I webbed his ass shut."

    awesome. I wish I could do that to a few people.

    Kiki Dunst looks worse than usual because she has morphed to look like her new boyfriend.

    good luck with the rejections.

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  5. Anonymous9:57 AM

    You know, Spidey is right; Maguire does look gay in tights. Also, if he REALLY wanted to be true to spiders his organic webbing would shoot out of his ass. Just sayin'.

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  6. Kirsten Dunst had me at the upsidedown kiss in the rain.

    Just kidding. But she did look good wet.

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  7. Anonymous9:10 PM

    I think that ass webs would be an awesome superpower. There's just so much potential. Anyways, I'd say about 90% chance that this'll get in. On the off chance that it doesn't, it's because the webmaster's ass webs have malfunctioned, making him so anal retentive that he can't accept anything not written by a team of 7.4 middle eastern monks during the 3rd quarter of the moon on Sunday in which 3mm of precipitation occurs before two o clock.

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  8. I about died at the "webbed his ass shut" - too hilarious.

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  9. Anonymous6:38 PM

    I dig McSweeney's.

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  10. Hahaha...This is awesome. Fingers crossed on the acceptance. :)

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  11. no no no, but thanks. It's already been rejected. That's why it's here. If they accept something, there will be a picture of me doing a happy dance with a link to it over there.

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