This isn’t the first scam email response I’ve done, and I’m also not the only one doing it, but responding to the scam emails I get is a favorite pastime of mine. Recently, a nice individual named Iruka Ogwugwu emailed me, and I encourage all of you to email him or her to discuss “exploiting the available investment opportunities” in your own country.

—–Original Message—–
From: Ogwugwu [mailto:irukaogwugwu@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 8:04 PM
Subject: Your connection

Hello,

I am a chief consultant, I have some interested partners who want to invest in your countrys economy. As a matter of trust you are expected to guide us to exploit the available investment opportunities, we need your business knowledge and connections to invest in your country, can you handle it?

I wait your response to provide you with more information.

Mr Iruka Ogwugwu
reply to iruogwugwu@gmail.com

Hello Iruka,

Thank you for your email. Yes, I am very interested in helping you invest in my country. Just so you know, I actually live in the country of Gorceylon. In case you haven’t heard of it, it is a small island nation off the coast of Madrid and a former Burmese colony populated by Dutch explorers who took it over from Indians that displaced the indigenous Eskimo/Macedonian population. There were also a few Jews and one Jehova’s Witness, but he didn’t like how hard it was going door to door handing out flyers in the unrelenting Gorceylon heat so he moved to Baltimore which is remarkably affordable.

Anyhow, thank you very much for trusting me, it is nice that someone has finally realized my outstanding achievements in the field of trust. Hey, I have a question- who would you trust more, the guy from Seinfeld who played Elaine’s boyfriend or Captain Crunch? I think Captain Crunch cause you don’t get promoted to Captain without doing some pretty cool and trustworthy things, even if you are fictitious and animated.

But, back to Gorceylon. How do you propose we exploit the available investment opportunities? My cousin Steve works at Foot Locker here and I bet he could jack like $30-$40 a week from the registers without anyone knowing. This is a great investment because it doesn’t require any start-up capital. Steve says he’ll do it for $37.50 per week, so I think we’re ready to make this plan actionable. I am already thinking about what I will spend the money on, and I’ll give you a hint, it starts with a “P” and ends in a “rostitutes”. Prostitution is legal in Gorceylon and I know this because I am both the President and the Secretary of the Exterior, which is a position I made up because I am President. The nation’s legislative branch tried to block my creation of the position of Secretary of the Exterior and the 7-weeks of mandatory mourning I instituted when the guy from “Crowded House” hung himself back in 2005, but I tricked them into agreeing by  promising the Secretary of the Exterior would appear to them in their dreams and reveal the winning numbers for the country’s lottery, but I never did it cause I didn’t want to.

Anyway, other investment opportunities include electric-powered big wheels which we have been investing in heavily as part of our commitment to sustainable resources and the undeniable demand for such a product in the free market. Anyone can make a Prius or a Tesla Roadster, I mean my cat basically craps out things that are more technologically advanced but that’s probably cause I feed him nothing but Amazon Kindles. Seriously though, if the release of the Segway proves anything it’s that there will always be a market for things people aren’t going to buy. Further, electric bigwheels are great because:

1. You can pedal them
2. Way less gay than having a Harley
3. Environmentally friendly except for all the ones we make that are powered by sulfur oxide.

Hey, we should plan a trip together sometime too. I am thinking either Orlando or Branson, but get back to me with your thoughts on that. Well, that’s pretty much it for now. Have a great summer and K.I.T.

Best regards,

David

Ok, so it has been a while here and I’m sorry about that but I haven’t been all that inspired. Inspiration did strike, however, when I came across this article in the New York Times about a guy who was convicted of having sex with his dogs: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/06/02/us/AP-US-Sex-With-Animals.html?ref=global-home. Check your Facebook accounts to make sure you aren’t friends with a Mr. Troy Whitson of Chehalis, Washington, and if you are, do not under any circumstances ask him to dog sit for you because, well, he will have sex with your dogs.

Mr. Whitson, 21, is a huge Dave Matthews fan as well as a member of the “Furry” community, which are a group of people who enjoy dressing up as animals and getting together, possibly to discuss how they wish the other people there were real animals that they could maybe have sex with. Actually, I’ m kidding because according to the Wikipedia article about Furries, or “Furry Fandom” only about 2% of them report an interest in Zoophilia, and the NYT article states this “is not part of their normal behavior”. So, maybe they only hook up with animals on every other Tuesday or something like that.  Two of Whitson’s fellow Furries turned him in after apparently witnessing the act, but it is unclear if they were just doing the right thing or trying to cock block.

Mr. Whitson’s malamutes have been placed with new owners who hopefully limit their sexual activity to humans and foliage, but more importantly, do not bring them to work (had to sneak that in). You may also notice I resisted any mention of “doggy style” in this post and I am very proud of myself.

We here in America like to handle situations a certain way, which we can get away with because of our economic & military significance, but also cause we’ve invented a lot of great things like Chinese food, freedom, and condensation. Part of being an American (I’m pretty sure it’s on the citizenship test) is finding someone to blame when shit goes really wrong because chances are no matter what it is, it’s someone else’s fault and not your own. Right now a lot of people are looking for who they can blame the recession on, and I’d love to find someone to blame here too because if I didn’t, I would basically be a Canadian, and that would be un-American, although still pretty close to being American.

There seem to be a lot of people whose names have been tossed in the ring to receive blame for the current little quagmire known as the US/global economy. Republicans still never fail to find a way to blame something on Bill Clinton even though he hasn’t been in office for 8 years. I hope they get over their ex-girlfriends faster than they’ve gotten over Slick Willy, but but we all know his game was tight so it may take a while. Democrats whine and insist it was reckless lack of oversight and excessive Wall Street bonuses which got us here, but for some reason they never bothered to speak up when their portfolios were making 9% year over year. I thought it was cute that they asked the people at AIG to give back their bonuses but that is such a ridiculous proposition that it never should have gotten past the Xanax & Pinot Noir fueled dinner meeting that spawned the idea in the first place. Would you give it back if it was you? I sure as hell wouldn’t, I’d keep it all for myself and record a rap album. Hind sight is 20/20, people, but it doesn’t need to be Mad Dog 20/20.

The Daily Show’s John Stewart seems to think CNBC and Jim Cramer are to blame, having forgotten, apparently, about all of the people who over-leveraged themselves and ended up in mortgages they couldn’t actually afford because they had nothing to do with this. I guess a lot of them watch his show and that would be bad for ratings. Maybe they find his ability to deflect their bad judgment onto a popular face and his cable news network somewhat cathartic. Cathartic can be a big a word just like “adjustable” can be when you sign mortgage papers. You’re right, John, it’s someone else’s fault, so I know you don’t want to hear it, but you really are an American afterall.  Just goes to show you that being an elitist, satirical, fake-news funny man is not enough to keep you from being the Nielsen rating system’s whore.

You may also have heard recently about the Russian academic Igor Panarin who blamed the global slowdown on America (he’d make a great American) and predicted the US will break into 6 countries with Alaska reverting to Russian control by 2010 as a result. They’re either out of Salmon or Totem poles in Mother Russia. Sure, there’s oil in Alaska, but we’ve kept it a secret from them along with Mexican food because they’re still bent that we bought it from them for $0.02 an acre in 1867 and that would get their cute fur hats in a bunch again. Given the way property values are headed though, they might not be far off from buying it back at the same price. Panarin also predicted that California would break off (woo-hoo!) and fall under Chinese influence or outright control (awwww), but I’d like to point out that he must not be that academic because if he’d visited any school in California’s University system he’d realize the process of Chinese influence in California has been under way for some time.

We can always turn to the sages of our day for guidance on who to possibly blame. The great Milli Vanilli instructed us to “Blame it on the Rain“, modern day prophets that they were who clearly saw this all coming 20 years ago when they were lip synching the lyrics “Gotta blame it on somethin’, gotta blame it on somethin’ “. Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you, Rob & Fab.

I guess the point is that a lot of people have someone they’d like to blame for this and I thought I’d get there too, but I just can’t figure it out. I would normally turn to my sworn enemies like the Dave Matthews Band, pigeons, people who bring their dogs to work, and anyone who participates in re-enactments of historic battles, but they’re probably all broke now (except for Dave Mathews who has been running a ponzi scheme of his own on stoned college kids for years) so I’ll leave them alone. All I know is that  it’s not my fault. You know what is my fault though? Great davidgorcey.com t-shirts that you can now buy at my cafepress store. Stimulate the economy of yours truly by getting one.

There are a few rules I live by. Among these, the publishable ones are:

1. Never give money to homeless people because they don’t go and spend it on a cool watch at the Paul Frank store as I instruct them to.
2. Never trust women wearing hats (what are they hiding under there?)
3. The possibilities of injury from products sold by Tony Little on the home shopping network are, from time to time, understated.
4. Pineapple salsa is only acceptable to serve at a party that is >90% Caucasian. Similarly, serving it at a party that is >10% Mexican will result in a situation.
5. Never date a girl who has more than 300 Facebook friends.

It is this last rule that I would like to discuss in detail here, but I think it applies to both men & women of any orientation and those like Andy Dick who are still figuring it out. The point is, an effective way to filter out potential romantic interests is by eliminating those with more than 300 Facebook friends. Anyone with more than that is probably problematic. I don’t know what it is, but I’m telling you this is a good rule to live by, and one you must instill in your children.

If someone has more than 300 people to follow, how are they going to have time to pay attention to you? Are you really more interesting than 300 other people? Are you more attractive? Not if I’m friends with them, you’re not. Do you really want to represent at most .3% of the people they know? That’s one-third of one percent for you MBAs out there. The thing is, most normal people don’t actually have 300 friends because that would make them pretty popular and by definition, most people are not popular. See how that works? Someone having this many friends diminishes your potential significance to them and should be, like a girl you casually know telling you she cheated on her last partner with her parachuting instructor, a deal killer. Think of it like stock- the market frowns on companies that dilute their shares by issuing more. The fewer shares, the more valuable each share is and the larger percentage of the company it represents. Have some value.

This idea is similar to a theory discussed in “The Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell (I’m not going to bother citing it like I should so save it). You probably got it one Christmas from your uncle who handed it to you, tapped it on the top and said “there’s some good ideas in there.” In it, Gladwell discusses a theory that humans can only effectively socialize with 150 other individuals, due to the ratio of the neocortex to the rest of the brain (a similar formula can also be applied to other primates). He backs up this theory citing research by a British anthropologist named Robin Dunbar of hunter gatherer societies which reveals a similar threshold of approximately 150 individuals per village before a group splits and a new one is created. On side note, if I lived in a village, my status updates on Facebook would be things like “David is churning more butter”, “David needs more thatch for ye olde roof” or “David bargained well today with both the fishmonger and the haberdasher. Yea, he shall have salted meat and warm clothing all winter long.”

What it comes down to is that it seems humans are wired such that they can only really have meaningful relationships with 150 individuals. This is well below my 300 person cutoff because the dynamic of a village is different than the rules that apply to Facebook and some space should be allowed for the selective inclusion of professional contacts, fans (you wouldn’t understand) or other people you end up accepting requests from, but are not really friends with like witches. When someone has more than 300 Facebook friends, they are basically eschewing anthropological research which does not sit well with me, and indicates that they desire to have many trivial friendships. Perhaps you will end up as one of them while they will perhaps end up in Congress. This is no recipe for a successful lifelong partnership.

But then again, I’d also never tell you to date someone with less than 30 friends cause that’s just sad. So, if we’re not friends on Facebook already, hurry up and add me cause I’m stuck at 210 and really need more validation than that.

Sorry for the delay in posting here, but I have been traveling and observing, criticizing, and judging, if you will. What I have found is that it is not our differences that characterize the various cultures on this planet, but the similarities we all share with each other. As such, I discovered that one thing which indeed binds us all together is the uniform of choice for many a douche, and that is the clothing of the Ed Hardy line designed by Christian Audigier.

You may know Christian Audigier from his previous line, Von Dutch which catered to the same demographic a few years ago and convinced people you could appear to own a motorcycle merely through the wearing of hats and t-shirts that said “Von Dutch” in a cursivey (you’re right, it’s not a word) font. Von Dutch is still around but then again Airwalk shoes are still around but you don’t ever see them unless you visit Sears or Payless (no joke, Google it). He also has designed for the Affliction brand of MMA-inspired clothing which means the douchebag demographic is basically his bitch. The guy also has a nightclub at Treasure Island in Vegas where douchebags sometimes have parties for their 30th birthday. Basically, he doesn’t design clothing as much as he designs identities and makes them available for purchase. It’s like what Abercrombie & Fitch does for people who feel they aren’t white enough. Through Ed Hardy, Christian Audigier puts his dainty French arms around a douchebag in distress, squirts them with a little more Axe body spray, and says “It’s alright buddy, I got ya.”

Now don’t get me wrong, there is creativity in the designs Christian Audigier puts out in his vintage tattoo-themed Ed Hardy line, but what I’m saying is that wearing them increases one’s chances of being a douchebag. A douchebag who likely allocates their resources poorly, which is a little bit redundant, because you don’t become a douchebag by maxing out your 401K, you become one by purchasing $400 oversized Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses on your credit card. Anyway, the point is Ed Hardy ain’t cheap from a  price perspective. It will take many douchebags several hours of working the door at a nightclub or behind the counter at their parents’ convenience store just to afford one of the $110 t-shirts. Douchebags with real jobs at places like Charles Schwab or Mrs. Field’s will have an easier time but will likely still need to allocate some of their bonuses to acquiring a complete Ed Hardy outfit which will include a hat with ornaments on it, and a loud, metal stud riddled belt. This makes it an aboslute pleasure to be behind someone wearing all this crap in the security line at the airport.

Your perspective might be different, but if you’ve spent time in Vegas, LA, or Melbourne, where Ed Hardy seems to be particularly prominent, I think you might have the same opinion. Maybe there is a direct correlation between sunlight and demand for Ed Hardy, I mean I haven’t been there lately, but I have a feeling the brand is doing swift business in Phoenix. I don’t see it selling out in Minneapolis unless Christian Audigier starts to design hockey pucks (let’s face it, he has the ability), although I do see it being quite profitable in New Jersey, whose residents are always willing to bear the cold in order to wear tight short sleeved shirts that reveal their tribal tattoos possibly incorporating a cross.

Business is all about finding a niche, and in that respect, Christian Audigier should be teaching MBA-level courses at Stanford cause he has it down. As long as he doesn’t start dressing them- times are tough and I don’t think Ralph Lauren can afford to take the hit.