What Exxon Knew but Jim from Aspen Didn't

Up late tonight working on a post I’ll be running later this week and I came across something that has finally convinced me that satire is no longer a distinguishable art form.

To prove my point, I am going to present two “found documents”: one is satirical, coming from my book Honeymoons in Temporary Locations while the other is the real deal final stake through the heart of satire.

Babe Looking for Jesus at Tinderbox Lounge on Halloween1—m4w (St. Augustine, Florida)

Body: Athletic Height: 6’6” Carbon Status: Under Review

I was dressed as a studly FEMA Director Jesus at Tinderbox last night and I kept seeing snaps from some girl looking for “Jesus” to meet her in the third stall of the bathroom. I was on my way to the johns to find you when the evacuation order came in. Your pics showed a girl dressed up as a Displaced Person of Middle Eastern Descent. Despite your racist costume, I was cosplaying Our Lord and Savior, so I forgive you and would love to bestow some heavenly graces onto thou. Hit me up if you’re the girl I’m talking about. Hopefully you were hot. It was hard to tell with that hijab you had on. Willing to throw in a few Federal Fuel Stamps if you end up being at least a seven.

Editor:

Whoever the person is who knew what “Exxon knew,” please tell us. The graffiti that the person is leaving all over town on what “Exxon knew” is quite unsightly and doesn't tell us what the cacographist knows about what Exxon knew.

So please, if the “Exxon knew” person knows something new about what Exxon knew please let us know without placing new graffiti on the sidewalks and walls of downtown Aspen.

Sincerely annoyed.

James H. Perry

Aspen

Which one is satire and which one is real?

Wouldn’t it be a little too on the nose for a man from Aspen to write a Letter to the Editor—cacographist!—that cosplays Richard Burton in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? A man, by the way, who is not pretending to be unaware of what Exxon knew, but who actually doesn’t know, and who also is not loved well enough by anyone in his circle of family and friends to have been told2.

But FEMA Director Jesus is a viable Halloween costume in these days of North Carolina disaster victims hunting down FEMA employees like the boys in Deliverance. Plus, the incoming administration may ban hijabs, but certainly won’t stop a sorority girl from having a little fun with “ethnic dress,” amiright?

I wrote one of these, and I can’t even tell the difference.

It’s a weird feeling to have written something speculative but also rooted in reality (satire), then to see that little coping-mechanism-in-written-form transform into something…documentary. I mean, one of my satirical “found documents” is a tidbit in an investment newsletter subtitled “What’s Next for the Home Insurance Industry?”

In short: collapse. We’re on our own, folks. Are you tied up in Florida home insurance stocks? If so, your net worth might be as underwater as Miami Beach. With premiums and sea level rising, this sector is nuclear waste, only more radioactive.

As a writer, I wonder: can something like this be funny if it’s true? Especially if it went from speculative to reality in the three years that elapsed between when I wrote it and when it was published. Because to me, that’s the stuff of nightmares.

So, FEMA Director Jesus does not exist, but Jim Perry of Aspen does, and he still wants to know if anyone will tell him what Exxon knew.

But not from a cacographist.