Dear Lead singer of Metallica,
I have to admit right in this first sentence in the body section of this letter which is indented five spaces and left-aligned but not justified, which I guess justifying the lines is a personal style thing and it could go either way but I always leave it be because I read in the Science, Week-in-review page on NYTimes.com that psychologists think we all read text easier when lines are left in ragged right, I didn’t know your name was James Hetfield until I Googled start quote lead singer of Metallica end quote. So, I want you to realize that I am not a fan, which is not to say
I hate Metallica or that I am going to pay homeless people to throw rocks at you but just
not a fan.
That’s funny that the topic of homeless people just sort of popped up like that, but since I moved here, Fifty-five East Tenth Street Room Two Hundred and Five W, New York, New York, they, homeless folks have been popping up all of the time. Ha, ha. Sorry,
one homeless guy whom I don’t know—I would say that he was a fellow that I knew at least a little; I don’t—pops up the legs to his card table which he sets on the corner in between a row of pay phones and a brown sign with an Indian pictograph of a man shoveling beneath his dog. He, the homeless man, throws himself down at his card table well before 9 and doesn’t get up until well after 5. If you walk past him eating something like an ice cream cone or a bagel sandwich or a bag of those French-fried Nuts 4 Nuts and you should be
eating something; there are so many tasty take-out places in the not-too-distant vicinity of his card table, then he will say “Nobody should be hungry,” and jingle his jug of pennies. If you’re wearing a nice-fitting dress made out of dollar bills, all with the bold, serif capital Bs on the seals left of George pig-teeth-dentures Washington, reassuring you they’re from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York,
New York, To Be A Legal Tender For All Debts Public Or Private and you wear long, dangly necklaces made of quarter, nickels and dimes that jingle jangle together as you walk with pennies in your loafers then he’ll say “Penny for the homeless? Just on penny” and shake his jug at you. But you are putting your pennies to better use than he would and even if you gave him just one
it would throw off the symmetry of your shoes. Symmetry is the most important. Why? I do not know, but they teach symmetry right as you show up to Kindergarten: “Hello, my name is Mrs. Schwinghammer, but you can call me Mrs. S. Do you know how to read? No, no that’s okay we’ll make sure you do learn this year. You do know symmetry of course?” If you were in kindergarten again, James Hetfield, and you didn’t know about symmetry.
Tough luck.
You better fake it or you’ll spend the rest of the day in the counselor’s office talking about what sorts of things your dad drinks when he gets home after work and what exactly your mom is doing when she smokes funny-smelling tobacco out of the three-feet long PVC pipe she hides under your bed. If you feel bad for this man at his card table,
like I do,
then schucks
even if you want to help him he probably won’t let you unless you mean to pay him with pennies or better yet quarters or better yet dollars. Even then he wouldn’t be earning it by working. I was going to pay him ten dollars an hour to move boxes for me but I was not moving and I did not have any boxes so I told him I would give him ten dollars if he would stand in my room and hold my mattress above his head for an hour. He declined.
Oh well
what the hell.
If you walk past the homeless guy with the jug of pennies, well not you you, not James Hetfield you, not the lead singer of Metallica you and you’ll see why—yes, really this time you—you will see why in a second
or two
If one was not James Hetfield, the lead singer of Metallica born on August 3, 1963 the year of Our Lord died on
no, still alive
and one walks past the homeless man at his card table singing quote Exit Light Enter Night end quote he won’t bother saying anything because he knows if you’re not wearing headphones or singing along to anything that you’re homeless, too, especially if you’re walking past his card table singing “Exist light, enter night” without headphones, holding your own card-table above your head.
This is why I wrote this letter to you, lead singer of Metallica, James Hetfield. I read that you do not like people stealing your music with their computers or their ipods or
so I thought I’d just whisper is your ear that—well figuratively whisper in your ear, you’re too far away: for me to whisper in your ear I’d have to
yell, at least—but figuratively instead I wrote it out that this homeless guy is singing your song and you could probably sue him. Though you’ll only win some change and maybe a card table, it is the principle that matters.
Cheers from not really your fan,
Alec Jacobson
