Actu­ally, I love cats.

A while back, an ex-girlfriend who I was clearly not over at the time asked me for a favor. I found the favor to be ridicu­lous, in fact, and I told her so in a cre­ative and long-winded fash­ion. Below is the cor­re­spon­dence. In hind­sight I real­ize I was chan­nel­ing David Thorne of 27b/6, and it may be the finest writ­ing I’ve ever done. The full cor­re­spon­dence is after the break, redacted to take out per­sonal infor­ma­tion, of course. If you know who this is, please don’t say. I’m only try­ing to embar­rass myself here.

On Nov 3, 2010, at 16:36

Hi Andrew,

I need some music-related help and frankly — you’re the best per­son to ask. Think you might be inter­ested in help­ing a lady out? Let me know please.

Best wishes,
Xxxxxxx

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On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 4:46 PM

You’ll need to be more spe­cific. Your email reads like the first half of a 419 scam.

–A

Sent from my iPhone

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On Nov 3, 2010, at 16:57

I can pro­vide many details, Mr. Fletcher — but to ver­ify your iden­tity please respond to these two questions:

1.) Are you aware of any relative/relation born on the 16^th of Feb­ru­ary 1952, who shares your same name whose last known con­tact address was West Africa?

2.) What is your bank account number?

I AM ANXIOUSLY WAITING TO HEAR FROM YOU SOONEST.

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On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 6:45 PM

What about music help?

–A

Sent from my iPhone

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On Nov 3, 2010, at 9:24 PM

Okay fine — in lieu of send­ing me your bank account num­ber (you do real­ize you’re for­feit­ing a king’s ran­som.. right?) here is what I sin­cerely need help with.

1.) 3 musi­cians who are will­ing to donate 3 hours of their Novem­ber 6^th Sat­ur­day night (7-10pm) who can play one small instru­ment (think­ing gui­tar?) for my char­ity event in exchange for free food from Bou­chon and Fig and wine.

OR

2.) A 3 hour playlist includ­ing great jazz, clas­si­cal and other intel­lec­tu­ally appro­pri­ate music for an upper crust crowd. See the pickle I’m in? I could use a music brain to help me sort this out, ya know. Are you game or should I ask some­one else?

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On Nov 3, 2010, at 11:55 PM

Greet­ings Xxx,

As a rel­a­tive of some­one with an Autism Spec­trum Dis­or­der, your cause is one that I would like to sup­port. How­ever, my char­i­ta­ble efforts are directed to other orga­ni­za­tions that are also wor­thy of my lim­ited time and skill. In addi­tion, I am fly­ing to Boston Fri­day morn­ing to kill some kit­tens, vote for Nader and give an eat­ing dis­or­der to a girl (Editor’s note: she falsely claimed I gave her an eat­ing dis­or­der) and will not return until Mon­day night and have an incred­i­ble amount of laun­dry and home­work to do before then.

1) Ask­ing three musi­cians to play one gui­tar for three hours is very irreg­u­lar, and I have only seen it in cir­cus dreams I’ve had. In seri­ous­ness, get­ting a jazz trio to play on two days notice for three hours on their most prof­itable night of the week in exchange for a crois­sant and a mag­num of third-rate Bilt­more Ries­ling is pretty far fetched. Unless the char­ity brought peo­ple back from the dead and handed out win­ning lot­tery tick­ets, I feel it would be insult­ing to my col­leagues to sug­gest such a thing to them. This is my pro­fes­sional opinion.

2) Unfor­tu­nately, the only 3 hour playlist I have con­sists of ODB, The Cap­tain and Tenille, a few of Ma Rainey’s more col­or­ful num­bers, sev­eral 1930s songs extolling the virtues of “reefer” and “tea,” a sam­pling of Ray Steven’s B-sides, Spike Jones slide-whistle solo records, some bowel-stiffening Mahler, an all-piccolo group that only plays John Phillip Sousa marches, “Fred Rogers Reads Allen Gins­berg” spo­ken word album ripped from an LP that I found in an alley in Amar­illo, Jim Nabors accom­pa­nied by a game­lan orches­tra (live), a Tibetan singing bowl cho­rus cover ver­sion of “In the Ghetto” that takes up most of 37 min­utes, a rare Mongolia-only release of Styx “Kil­roy Was Here” in mono, Zamfir’s sequel to “Alice’s Restau­rant,” and a Gre­go­rian Chant trib­ute to “Trapped in the Closet.” There’s a lot more in this playlist but I haven’t made them up yet. While eclec­tic, It may not be appro­pri­ate for the lower-upper-middle class con­tin­gent that enjoys being seen at such char­ity events. Real money comes in Goldman-Sachs envelopes, not L.L. Bean pullovers. My sug­ges­tion is to isohunt.com a jazz playlist. They exist in droves. Key­words to look for: Coltrane, Brubeck, Milt Jack­son, your mom.

Enjoy your pickles,

Rev. Andrew J. Fletcher, Expert.

P.S. I admit this is a pretty snarky way to say no, but in all hon­esty I really have no help that I can pro­vide at this time. And my Uncle really is severely autis­tic. I was watch­ing 8mm film of him as a child this very evening at my grand­par­ents’ home and nearly cried. Good luck in this endeavour.

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I never received a reply.