Note: I live for letters like this one. Enjoy.
- Joe

Dear Joe,

Life had been going pretty well for me this year. In fact, 2008 was possibly my best year ever.

That was all until I opened JoeDonatelli.com on November 13th. Joe immediately knows what I’m talking about. For the rest of you, it was this entry, titled “How will The Shield end?”

About two years ago, my brother told me about that show. I watched the first season, thought it was pretty cool, but then moved to L.A. and had other things to do.

But then November 13th happened. And Joe, so infatuated with this TV series, convinced me to catch up with it so that I could see for myself how it would end and if any of Joe’s picks would be remotely close to accurate.

And so it began: the last month and a half spent wasting loads of free time watching every single episode to this hateful TV drama filled with negative energy. And I got hooked. Bad.

The more I watched, the more addicted I became. The more addicted I became, the more my life began to unravel. I started losing sleep due to dreams of Claudette Whims and Vic Mackey interrogating me. My blood pressure and pulse rate rose. Work projects suffered. I trusted no one. Social contacts were dropped. I had two of the most miserable, sleep-deprived workouts of my life. I even turned down a Saturday night of easy sex to stay in and watch two more episodes (that and this new protein powder I’d been sampling gave me the most awful gas of my entire life.)  I even considered finding Lt. Kavanaugh and killing him myself. I would never prescribe this much police drama to anybody, even one of JoeDonatelli.com’s family members.

To make matters worse, on the morning of my birthday, I watched my favorite character get blown to pieces by a hand grenade. I nearly lost it.

All in all, I envision that I destroyed about 60 hours of quality time due to JoeDonatelli.com - time that could have been spent working with customers, marketing the Web site, reading useful business books or god forbid having sex. Instead, I watched spiteful, deceit-filled drama until I either fell asleep or snapped at my roommate for breathing the same air as me.

But finally, on the night of Christmas day 2008, I made it. I watched The Shield up to the last episode. I went straight to the now-hated JoeDonatelli.com and found his post from November 13th. I agreed with none of his ten predictions, and muttered “what an asshole” under my breath.

And then I watched the final episode, and had the same contemplative reaction as just about everyone else did. And I went back onto JoeDonatelli.com to read his final review and noted that the pick he gave 1,000,000-to-1 odds was the closest one to coming true! What an asshole indeed.

I’ll continue to read JoeDonatelli.com in the important matters of dating (warming up your sets), the misery of being from Cleveland, and the massive differences between Marina Del Rey, CA, and Santa Monica, CA, (which when thinking about while in Cleveland right now seem quite miniscule). But when it comes to popular culture and media, I will gladly pass.

Now, your typical JoeDonatelli.com writer would probably say, (in some nasally and insulting writer voice that shows poignant indignation), “Well that proves what a great show it was. It was so well-written that you were drawn in and it affected your life, never to be the same again.”

To which I say, “Fuck you, JoeDonatelli.com, fuck you.”

- Mike, of PricePlow, Los Angeles

But let’s not all go crazy.

Turns out artist Andy Thomas paints in the spirit of bipartisanship (you can buy this print by going here.) Above we have a painting of Democratic presidents playing cards. My thoughts on its accuracy below.

- Goody-goody Jimmy Carter is playing cards while bad boy JFK just stands around and watches? I don’t think so.

- Andrew Jackson, knowing that Democrats often take money that is not theirs, wisely brought a pistol to the game.

- Did Truman come straight from a Buffett concert?

- You just know Woodrow Wilson gets pissed every time JFK and Clinton talk poon. He’s all like, “Gentlemen, let us discuss how America can be an arsenal for democracy.” And JFK is like, “Er, uh, I’ll tell you who had a great arsenal –Sophia Loren. She had an arsenal that would not, er, uh, quit.”

- Everyone hates FDR’s joke at the end of each hand when he says, “Gentlemen, it appears the time has come for a new deal.” Except Carter. It cracks Carter up every time.

To see the painting’s GOP counterpart, click here.

In 2008 I posted a humorous piece about these Republican presidents playing cards. Since then, it has become one of the most visited pages on my site. (How the Internet works, I have no idea.) I have taken down the jokes and, in the name of public service, will leave you with this link to artist Andy Thomas’s Web site in case you would like to order one of these prints for yourself.

- Joe

(Photo by JelleS/Flickr)

Thanks to loyal reader Amelia B. for the link to this Web site. Your life will be incomplete if you do not check out www.mydairycow.com.