The following correspondence was emailed to us by the responsible party. Names have been omitted to protect the rascals.
So the other night, maybe last week at some point, I believe after a Bass Ale or two, I got on line, and promptly found Too Much Coffee Man, the website (http://www.tmcm.com), which, I have to say, is one of my favorite comic strips. I have Too Much Coffee Man on my desktop, and some days, in some ways, I aspire to be him. On one of their pages was a plea to write your local alternative weekly and request that it carry their strip, with a form letter that people could use. Maybe it was the beer, but a little searching on Seven Days' website (http://www.sevendays.com) and a little cutting-and-pasting later, and the following was sent:
Dear editors of Seven Days

I am one of the thousands of potential readers that is being stolen from you by toomuchcoffeeman.com. You see, your paper does not have the Too Much Coffee Man comic strip, and toomuchcoffeeman.com does. So rather than pick up your paper and look at all of the paying ads each week, I go to toomuchcoffeeman.com, read the comic strip, and continue on to hours of uninterrupted porno. Please help to destroy this vicious cycle by printing the Too Much Coffee Man comic strip in your poignant, entertaining, insightful, relelvant, important newspaper. It's cheaper than you think, and requires minimal effort each week. Do it for your readers, do it for your advertisers, do it to help crush the evil empire that is toomuchcoffeeman.com.

Your loyal friend and devoted, coffee-addicted reader.
Of course, the only part of that, besides my name and address that was my writing was the "loyal friend..." etc. and so, figuring that Seven Days probably doesn't have time to respond to all the pleas to publish all the many comix, I did what any semi drunk person would do in front of a computer: I promptly forgot about it and went in search of porn.

Well a couple (five) days later, a little tipsy from a beer and some scotch and amaretto, I jumped back on the computer, and downloaded my email, only to receive two, (not one, but two) letters from seven days, both listed as follows:
Good to know. Does your mother/wife/girlfriend/boyfriend know about the porn? I saw the coffeeman himself at a recent alt-weekly convention, but, alas, did not pick up his propaganda. I promise to check out the web site at your recommendation. We may indeed be getting more comix in 7D.
Say, the coffeeman isn't paying you for this, is he?

Pamela Polston
Co-publisher/editor
Seven Days


Aha! I have now gone to the coffeeman web site and discovered your dirty secret: a form letter! Sheesh, can't you even come up with an original promo for this cartoon, if you love it so much?

Do you really think we should get it? Tell me why, in your own words, you rascal.

pamela
Alas! I had been caught! And called a rascal! So of course, now that I had been cornered, I had to put my mouth where, er, my mouth was, to steal a line from Scooby Doo the movie. So, still drunk, I tapped out this:
Dear Ms. Pamela Polston,

Aha! You've caught on to my dirty little secret. Actually, it's not that dirty (except for the porn part) and it's not that secret. I thought the letter was so good, and quite possibly accurate, that it was worth a shot sending it.

To be truthful, I love Too Much Coffee Man. I may actually be *in* love with TMCM (tm) but that's for my therapist/wife/mother/girlfriend/boyfriend to tell me about. I also happen to love Seven Days (tm) not only for your (and Peter Freyne's) wit and wisdom, but for the wonderful storytelling, the great muckraking, and, of course, with every good newspaper: the funny comics. And yet, here is TMCM, combining political insight, humor and coffee. It's nigh perfect. But alas! I must wait for my musty 56K modem to bring it to me each week, when instead I could be enjoying Shannon's fine comic while sipping a cup of locally-roasted brew and perusing my favorite local weekly.

And so I ask. And hope that my asking has brought you to the light, or at least some humor. :-)

Think well of me despite my rampant plagarism. It was well intentioned.
And I received my redemption thusly:
I forgive you, and thank you for your candor and humor. I will indeed consider TMCM. It's entreaties like yours that do make a difference.

thanks,
pamela
This might be the part of the message where I entreat you to send your own message to Pamela, and bother her with requests to send a little more money to Shanon Wheeler so he can continue his great work. Or maybe at least tell you to send this to 5 people in the next 20 minutes or all your pubic hair will fall off or whatever, but I won't. That's downright silly. I'm not trying to start any campaigns here, I'm just recounting the sort-of funny, and slightly strange mostly-drunken encounter I had with a newspaper person. It was fun, and I got called a rascal.

Ta-ta to you all.
c.