Dolph and Erasmus - Guess What?

_______________________________________________________________________________
FROM:        Tom Alford
TO:                D.J. Kaercher
SUBJECT:

Put down the spreadsheet and leave right now. Do it. You know you want to.

_______________________________________________________________________________
FROM:        D.J. Kaercher
TO:                Tom Alford
SUBJECT:   Re:

I have always been able to rely on you for terrific guidance. How are things in your neck of the woods?

_______________________________________________________________________________
FROM:        Tom Alford
TO:                D.J. Kaercher
SUBJECT:   Re:

Oh, just swell. That new quality control supervisor (whom I’ve cleverly nicknamed “Brickstain”) caught me playing Bejeweled 2 earlier and gave me a demerit, or a frowning face sticker, or whatever this week’s form of non-threatening punishment is.

 I told him I was dealing with complex personal issues and I think I bought myself a reprieve through lunch time.

_______________________________________________________________________________
FROM:        D.J. Kaercher
TO:                Tom Alford
SUBJECT:   Re:

Way to go, champ. Sounds like you have bested that villain.

_______________________________________________________________________________
FROM:        Tom Alford
TO:                D.J. Kaercher
SUBJECT:   Re:

Alas, I have. Plus, let the record show that I’ve been stealing his lunch out of the fridge for the past week. An intern got canned for it. Poor kid was escorted out by Terence from security and everything.

_______________________________________________________________________________
FROM:        D.J. Kaercher
TO:                Tom Alford
SUBJECT:   Re:

Short Terence or Sexy Terence?

_______________________________________________________________________________
FROM:        Tom Alford
TO:                D.J. Kaercher
SUBJECT:   Re:

Sexy Terence.

_______________________________________________________________________________
FROM:        D.J. Kaercher
TO:                Tom Alford
SUBJECT:   Re:

If the kid knew it was you, I’m sure he’d thank you.

Back to your original query, leaving this place forever does sound fantastic. If one more person walks through the open entryway of this God-forsaken cubicle and asks me for a statusary report I’m going to absolutely lose my mind.

The joke’s on them anyways; I’ve been here four months and I still don’t even know what the heck a statusary report is.

“Statusary?” That word doesn’t even sound grammatically possible.

_______________________________________________________________________________
FROM:        Tom Alford
TO:                D.J. Kaercher
SUBJECT:   Re:

I’m guessing by your response that you didn’t leave yet. Well played, sir. The only thing keeping me here is that smoking piece of lady three cubicles down with the shampoo-commercial hair and ever-present high beams. Effective yesterday, I’ve engaged a 14-week plan to make her my love interest. The first eight weeks require no action, so I have some time to psych myself into it. If things don’t work out with her, I’m thinking about moving to Oregon to become a lumberjack. Any interest?

_______________________________________________________________________________
FROM:        D.J. Kaercher
TO:                Tom Alford
SUBJECT:   Re:

Well, I have always wanted to be a lumberjack.

_______________________________________________________________________________
FROM:        Tom Alford
TO:                D.J. Kaercher
SUBJECT:   Re:

I heard on NPR that there’re only a few dozen trees left in Oregon. Has something to do with an arboreal version of gum disease. Don’t know the details. Either way, shouldn’t be too strenuous. Maybe when we’re done we could move on to Alaska and become ice fishermen. I’ve heard Eskimo girls really know how to keep you warm. If you buy what I’m selling.

_______________________________________________________________________________
FROM:        D.J. Kaercher
TO:                Tom Alford
SUBJECT:   Re:

I do indeed catch what you’re throwing. But I had a bad ice fishing experience in grade school (fell asleep, my cousin pantsed me, woke up with my nuts frozen to a sturgeon decoy, had to chisel myself free).  So if we go, I say it should be a short stay, and then we’ll trek across the Bering Strait to Russia and mosey on down to China. It would be a long trek, but surely it would be worth it. I've always wanted to explore the beautiful Chinese wilderness and climb giant bamboo shoots in a search of Giant Pandas.

_______________________________________________________________________________
FROM:        Tom Alford
TO:                D.J. Kaercher
SUBJECT:   Re:

Good plan. If only we had the cojones to give it a go. Well, I think I’m going to take some personal time this afternoon and go bet on the puppies. You in?

_______________________________________________________________________________
FROM:        D.J. Kaercher
TO:                Tom Alford
SUBJECT:   Re:

Mighty tempting, but I used up all my PT when I had Boogie Fever a few weeks ago. Enjoy. Before you leave, stop by and check out this video I found of a monkey stealing this guy’s hat. Hilarious!

_______________________________________________________________________________
FROM:        Tom Alford
TO:                D.J. Kaercher
SUBJECT:   Re:

I’m going the opposite way. Email me a link. I’ll watch it tomorrow.

_______________________________________________________________________________
FROM:        D.J. Kaercher
TO:                Tom Alford
SUBJECT:   Re:

I’m in the cubicle next to you. It will be three extra steps.

_______________________________________________________________________________
FROM:        Tom Alford
TO:                D.J. Kaercher
SUBJECT:   Re:

What kind of hat is the monkey wearing?

_______________________________________________________________________________
FROM:        D.J. Kaercher
TO:                Tom Alford
SUBJECT:   Re:

A Panama Jack.

_______________________________________________________________________________
FROM:        Tom Alford
TO:                D.J. Kaercher
SUBJECT:   Re:

OK. I’ll be right there.

_______________________________________________________________________________
FROM:        D.J. Kaercher
TO:                Tom Alford
SUBJECT:   Re:

I knew you would.

_______________________________________________________________________________
FROM:        Tom Alford
TO:                D.J. Kaercher
SUBJECT:   Guess what?

Want to hear something funny? I thought you might.

So, I got to work early this morning to play online poker because my laptop at home has another virus. (This is my fifth laptop. Each time same deal. I know you’ve had this problem, too. They don’t make those things very well, do they?) When I got here, I heard the three worst pieces of news I’ve ever received in my life:

1)     I had seven voice mails.

2)     There’s no more FIJI Natural Artesian Water in the fridge.

3)     Shampoo/High Beams quit yesterday.

Can you believe that? Well, I couldn’t, so I did what any rational person would do: I strapped a parachute to my back and base jumped from my 8th story window. I gracefully landed atop a cab and roof surfed until I arrived at the airport.

Unsure of where to go, I surveyed my options. It soon became evident that the next available flight was to Hongqiao International Airport in Shanghai.

China! How ironic is that?!

You had just mentioned China, and now here I am. I hailed a rickshaw driven by a nice young man named Zhang who, it turns out, is on the run from the Shanghai police because of a case of mistaken identity. Apparently, there’s some guy who is Zhang’s doppelganger that runs a very lucrative yet very illegal horse-fighting ring. With no ties keeping us in the “Paris of the East,” I helped my new friend escape upon a barge. We are now floating down the Yangtze River, an Asian-fusion version of Huck and Jim.

Zhang is quite the entrepreneur. At the last port, he bought us a BlackBerry for communication and “infotainment.” He paid only four bamboo baskets, a couple of yaks, and his second-born nephew. Needless to say, life is pretty great here in the Orient!

To celebrate this new adventure, I have decided to let my hair and beard grow very long, and have shredded my clothes so that I now look like a more muscular (but less delusional) version of Tom Hanks in the movie, Cast Away.

By the by, how are those statusary reports treating you?

Decision

Screw it. Just call me Wiki Leaks. I'm putting the book out there, consequences be damned. A PDF is available in link below. Chapters to come soon in posts.

DOWNLOAD PDF

Cease and desist

Working through legal issues with the "authors." Fight the power!

More to come soon!

Dolph and Erasmus - Book Post 1 - Foreword

FOREWORD

by Noted Anthropologist, F. Dolan Malachi, Ph.D.

Hello, I’m noted anthropologist, F. Dolan Malachi, Ph.D.

You probably read my well-received nonfiction tour-de-force, Vanuatu’s Elbow, which compared the Melanesian island nation of Vanuatu to the flap of elbow skin commonly referred to as the “weenis.” Due to its lack of nerve endings, no matter how hard you pinch your weenis, you won’t feel any pain. My book presumes that the same can be said of the calloused but supple people of Vanuatu. The New York Times described the book as “long, but in a good way.”

Many moons ago, I spent an undergraduate semester in Papua New Guinea researching the communication patterns of marsupials. As pretentiously glorious as this may sound, it was a painstakingly boring pursuit, and I very quickly found myself yearning for something (or anything) else.

One day as I strolled through a small fishing village in the province of Madang, I overheard an elderly man telling a group of tourists the account of a dormant volcano named Mount Pagual that had not erupted since the Mesozoic era. On a pre-dawn hike to observe its majesty, I learned that dozens of my contemporaries (dejected study-abroad anthropology students) co-habited there. I left my host family’s adobe that night without saying goodbye and went to join in on the fun.

Quickly and deeply, I fell in love with the “Shangri-la” they had created therein. They spent the majority of their time discussing ethnocentrism whilst high on mescaline. I wanted badly to fit in.

The son of a God-fearing grocery magnate, I was not familiar with mescaline — the white, water-soluble, crystalline-powdered psychedelic. What I did know, however, was mesclun — the salad mix composed of young leafy greens.

Who would have guessed that the latter could be even more addictive than the first? Certainly not this budding anthropologist. I “dived headfirst into the icy depths of my new addiction like a coyote into a swimming pool on the first day of winter.”

We relished in our collective vices for six weeks, but it felt like at least seven. We celebrated each day as if it were our last. It was lucky we did so, because many of my peers met their grisly end on the day historians call “Hot Thursday.”

Maybe Mount Pagual disagreed with our cavalier lifestyle. Maybe it decided it was just time for a cleansing. Whatever the reason, the great volcano erupted that cataclysmic mourn, spewing forth much lava — and more blood. In a few hours time, our land of milk and honey soured up and dried into a hard, sticky magmatic monstrosity.

My saving grace was that two days earlier I had fallen victim to a Vitamin A-induced coma while meditating inside an antique pie cabinet. The mesclun that had been my captor ultimately became my savior. I first regained consciousness a week later, floating in the Pacific Ocean, clinging desperately onto what was left of the cabinet. I ransacked its compartments for sweet leafy nourishment, but all I found was a 2GB SanDisk USB Flash Drive. I put it in my pocket for safe keeping and blacked out once more.

When I next awoke, I was spread eagle on a hammock in the backyard of an Asian-American family in Los Gatos, California, the sun beating down on my weather-beaten face. I thanked the Takaharas for their hospitality and asked of them one last favor: a ride to the public library. They obliged.

Once I was able to obtain a guest user ID and login to a computer, and then format the computer to recognize the flash drive as a permissible device (thanks to the help of Carl, the chivalrous technology assistant), I uploaded the enclosed files and was blessedly introduced to Dolph Blackburn and Erasmus Tesserman. I read the entirety of their correspondence without blinking once. I was perpetually transformed. Mesclun’s stronghold had built an intricate sand castle of despondency upon the beach of my heart, but their story was the halcyon whitecap that eradicated and then refurbished the shore of my soul.

Since the moment I logged off that Los Gatos Public Library computer, it has been my life’s undertaking to be the conduit through which the world receives their story. Unfortunately, for many years I was unfairly ridiculed, heartlessly blackballed, and flat-out dissed by my peers. Apparently, they were of the opinion that such a glorious tale as you are about to read could never be fact. I believe that everyone is entitled to their opinion, but obviously their collective opinion was, to be blunt, really stupid.

Suck it, other anthropologists.

It was only after every avenue towards sharing this story with the world was exhausted that I fundamentally sold my soul to Mephistopheles by writing Vanuatu’s Elbow. There is no denying that the book is utter genius and it’s not hyperbole to say that it forever changed the world’s view of both Vanuatu and elbows, but to me, its creation was only a means to an end. I now had the street cred to publish the story you’re about to read.

Unfortunately, two lying, cheating jerks named Tom Alford and D.J. Kaercher stole my manuscript and quickly self-published it as Dolph and Erasmus. I was planning to go with The Explorationers, which I think has a much nicer ring, and sounds less like a man-on-man love story.

I am currently suing those jerks, but so far my attorney has only been able to secure rights to have this foreword (and a complimentary afterword — don’t miss it!) added to this first edition. Future prints will eliminate their names, and will include some very special photographs of me from adolescence.

Regardless of its origin, the good news is that you, my dear, sweet reader, are finally able to partake in this tale. I hope you enjoy the beautifully written, hauntingly poetic letters of the greatest heroes the world has ever known and then lost, and then found once more.

It is my great delight to officially announce their arrival and present the story of Dolph and Erasmus as it should be told — in their own words.

- F -

A Word From F

I apologize for the delay; I have been hard at work on my application for tenure. I cannot reveal the name of the university (hint: it rhymes with "Fartmouth"), but I can say that my application was denied. Perhaps next autumn the old maxim "eleventh time's the charm" will hold true.

With little else -- save my sordid love life -- to distract me, I'm ready to break those copyright laws I promised I would break.

In their own way, Alford and Kaercher extended an olive branch by commissioning me to write a Foreword and Afterword for the second print of Dolph and Erasmus. (Still gonna sue 'em.) I'll post that momentarily, followed by periodic postings of the body of the book, which is written in email format. The emails are the actual correspondence of the two protagonists, word-for-word; the only change A&K made was to insert themselves as Dolph and Erasmus's pre-Dolph and pre-Erasmus selves.

Don't forget to buy a copy (or twelve!) from your local online retailer (Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Borders, etc). Just enter "Dolph and Erasmus" into the search field and you'll find it. Remember: the more money they make, the more I can sue them for.

Happy Holidays!

- F -

An Introduction

For the unfamiliar few, I am F. Dolan Malachi Ph.D., the noted anthropologist and author.

Call me F.

Through the ages, bloggers have used blogs to indulge in their opinions, beliefs, fears, wishes, self doubts, self truths, and weirdo proclivities. I am no exception, with one exception: I have a purpose. Throwing caution and copyright laws to the wind, I will release "selected chapters" of a published book of which I am not the author, and in which I technically have no legal interest.

I have "selected" all of the chapters.

The hope is to promote, popularize, and drive sales of the "novel," Dolph and Erasmus. Once its "authors" Tom Alford and D.J. Kaercher have sold a crap ton of copies, and made a crap ton of cash, I will sue them for everything. As of now, they have little to nothing. I'll wait until they have some stuff.

My reasoning is just. In short, they did not write the book. They had as much to do with it's inception as they did with the movie Inception's inception. So none. (That movie was crazy, right?!)

Dolph and Erasmus are not fairy tale protagonists; they happened. I was set to publish their actual correspondence as non-fiction -- not for my gain, but for the world's (and also for my own, but only financially) -- when Alford and Kaercher swooped in like eagles from the mist and snatched it from me with their talons.

You'll learn more about them, and me, as the blog unfolds. We hope you enjoy!

- F -