Loving The Fans

Turner didn't want me to post this on the Planet Simpson site, so it was agreed I'd put it here.

Dude! The people out there rock. You rock, Planet Simpson!

It has to be said however, that of course some people SUCK. You suck, some people! As we've learned, amazingly enough there are people who troll around and write astoundingly negative emails to hardworking creative media types such as ourselves. I am very much reminded of the "I don't come to your place of business and heckle you while you work" Seinfeld episode.

Here's a recent set of correspondence that falls into this category. (Feel free to write your own response to our friend - "her" email address is included here for your use.)

Date: Mon, 1 May 2006 09:04:38 -0700 (PDT)
From:  "Kathleen Doris" <thadstark@yahoo.com> 
Subject: HEY TURNER! 
To: ash_planetsimpson@yahoo.ca

your book sucked.

a lot.

you should just give up.

your fan boy squeeing made me embarrassed for you.

if you really worship the simpsons perhaps suicide is an
option you should seriously consider.

it's not even funny anymore.

sincerely,

kathleen doris

***

So, you know, I wrote "her" back. Yeah, I know. It's some idiot 16 year old looking for a reaction. In fact, probably this sixteen year old. I decided to bite anyway. Sometimes people work pretty hard to be mean, and I wanted to give her some validation, you know?

Ha ha ha ha ha!!! YOU SUCK, "Kathleen Doris"!

So: Real mature! You see? We are mature here at Planet Simpson.

***
Then "she" replied (ever vigilant with her email inbox, I see):

Date: Tue, 2 May 2006 06:58:57 -0700 (PDT)
From:  "Kathleen Doris" <thadstark@yahoo.com> 
Subject: Re: HEY TURNER! 
To: "Ashley Bristowe" <ash_planetsimpson@yahoo.ca>    

CHRIS TURNER HAS A FAN GIRL?????

that is the saddest thing I have ever heard.

he had moved down a rank on the scale of being pathetic to
add you

thanks for putting quotes around my name. that's awesome,
really.

Kathleen Doris

***

So I'll reply again, but on here, this time:

Dear You, the "Kathleen Doris" person:

You're welcome for the quotes. You "suck"! Ha ha ha ha ha!!!

Please, keep writing to Turner! You are "awesome"! You are really "inspiring"! These days so many people just don't take the time to figure out how to contact an author in order to tell them that they should commit suicide. And this is a real shame - more deaths would mean fewer authors vying for that limited Canadian bookstore shelving space. Higher rankings on Amazon.ca! All sorts of bonuses.

But you - what a trailblazer! I mean, you're blazing a trail! Trying to make us feel all bad about ourselves and all. And nary a year and a half after the book was published. What savvy! I'm sure you bided your time and waited to spring when all was ripe. And gumption? GUMPTION! You "ROCK".

But seriously, It's good to hear from you about all your "opinions", man. Because it's important to hear what the "Little People" out there really think. Although we've mulled over the "giving up" option you suggested, I'm sorry to report that we're just having too good a time. Y'see, we have a daughter and a house and good relationships with our family, and lots of great friends, and we get to travel around to do research and write articles and give lectures, and we are creatively fulfilled, and we have hobbies. Besides the bestselling books and the National Magazine Awards and the lotta ins and outs and what-have-yous. You know, a real life. Maybe people who troll the internet for hate mail candidates don't have "lives", so I won't brag, as best to spare your feelings.

But again: thank you. No, thank YOU! Your thoughts and suggestions were considered with the utmost seriousness and gravitas here at Planet Simpson. And thanks especially for being sincere. As in, your "sincerely, Kathleen Doris" part. That was the bomb. We love sincere people. You especially. Perhaps you should make tshirts. Put "Sincerely" on them. I bet they'd sell a million! Make you a mint!

In any case, please send your postal address for a special gift from us! We love sending mail to fans. For you, a flaming bag of poo delivered direct to your door! But delivered WITH LOVE.

love again, Ash (aka "Fan Girl", aka "The Wife") and Turner

Categories: Internet | Turner | Work work work

Comments [4]

Nobody Thinks That Sake Is A Good Idea At This Hour, Not Even Me.

Hullo hullo, we're back in Canada. It's 3:09am and I'm exhausted and jetlagged and on deadline; there's only sake left in the house, but I'm not above bringing it up to snuff in a saucepan and sitting down in front of the ol' blog to tell a few tales.

A few weeks ago I did a foolish thing. I'd had a pretty good run of stories and after years of officially Not Giving A Shit What Other People Think, out of the blue I decided to submit my blog for review by a hilarious snarkfest weblog review site, I Talk Too Much. Ha ha ha, I'm so funny, thinked I. Oh, Dad and Leo and the house alarm - guffaw! The abysmal state of Indian bathrooms! Har har har, DO go on, Ashley. So I submitted my site and thought Oh Goody, Can't Wait.

Except then something happened. Then I didn't want to post anything. I didn't want to say anything that might compromise the coming review. I couldn't think of anything quite good enough to say on here that didn't seem banal, or lame, or self-indulgent. And then I got into this big merry-go-round of thought wherein Of Course everything is self-indulgent, it's mine own blog and I say what I like and mainly write to amuse myself first and foremost, etc. But them ideas and thinkingness didn't help matters at all, and in any case, I just stopped posting.

We got busy in India of course, and it started out like that - busy, and lack of internet access, and then the internet access we had was shitty and spotty and slow, and Sloane got a fever and scared us a bit that way and I had to be with her all the time. And then we came back to Bangkok, and Sloane was still a bit sick on and off, and then Turner left to come home to Canada, and I was on my own, but I was starting these two contracts and was busy like mad getting some documents whipped into shape for an NGO based in Laos. Which was great an' all, but it was our last two weeks in Bangkok, and I was working day and night, and trying to pack, and Bauer and Karen came through town again. And then we had to take Sloane to the hospital, and the deadlines changed, and I had to pick up last minute gifts at the Weekend Market, and so on. And I kept thinking I'd post about this and that, but I was, underneath all the running-around, kind of paralysed, waiting for this review from "The Bitches" over at I Talk Too Much.

But finally I said Ah fuck it, this is retarded, I miss my blog. So I wrote to the site to say, Uh yes I'm a moron but please take me off your list to be reviewed - I'm not posting anything anyway because I have stage fright or something. And I got an email back about a day later: "Oh, sorry, I'd take you off the list, but I think you've already been done." I'd missed it, because I was avoiding the internet.

When I saw the review, I laughed. LAUGHED, because oh lord I guess I asked for it. Back to Not Giving A Shit for me, frankly, because if this is what Those Who Review think, I'm MUCH better off talking to myself online as per usual: my review, here. In truth I have to think that this woman didn't read anything beyond the header, since she seemed to hate it so much. But that's fair - the site is brutal and nasty and I love many of their reviews because they're so creatively mean, though I am disappointed I didn't raise enough ire to earn an inspired version of being handed my ass. I knew full well that if I'd wanted a warm fuzzy I could've asked my mom to review the site (hi Mem!), so I was a bit sorry that the header got dissed and there was nothing more interesting than that. Personally I thought the Uncle Leo & Brucio house alarm story was pretty funny and worth the price of admission at this point, but maybe it's just because I know the people involved. In any case, despite the dismal review I got interesting traffic and emails from lovely people complimenting me on my site content and also a few telling me I was an international bigot ("more like an American, I'd have guessed, than a Canadian - most Canadians are tolerant" said one guy) due to my cultural 'insights' about the Indian toilet situation. Uh, okay.

Anyway, Sloane and I have been back for a few days, dizzy and disoriented and jetlagging... but slowly getting back into the Calgary groove. More to come from Spiller Road HQ after some sleep.

Categories: Ash | Internet

Comments [3]

Welcome Back!

Well, we aren't 100% sure about what happened there, but it seems someone at Shaw Cable in Calgary deserves the boot. Apparently they accidentally assigned our server IP address to someone else, effectively evicting everyone without warning for a few days: yours truly here at ashleybristowe.com, but also John's site bristowe.com, Turner's site planetsimpson.com, Ainsley and Jonathon's site teamsullivan.com, and whoever else being hosted by Brother John on the basement server in Douglasdale.

Of course, being the self-obsessed internet addicts we are, the error was noticed within, oh, 15 seconds of the sites going down. But we were completely unable to divert all power to the rear deflector shields, being not-so-computerish-minded when it comes to actually fixing glitches and such. So we sat on our hands and waited for Brother John to tell us what the heck was going on. 

After a thorough diagnostic at our end revealing nothing amiss, John cracked his knuckles, got on the horn, and told Shaw Cable what kind of special hell would be reserved for their infrastructure if they forced him to hack into their system to fix the problem, himself. Even with that kind of ice water pouring down their necks it still took nearly a week. I think John was starting to warm up the neutron guns when finally everything zinged back to life earlier today with nary a "sorry about that" in the offing.

In any case, we're back. Merry Christmas & belated happy holidays, everyone!

Categories: Internet

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Now Point: You, You, I-Know-You

Part One in the "Lost Archives" series...

Papa Mike arrived in Calgary tonight with a jeep full of my stuff: rocks stolen from the side-of-the-road near Sandon (for the garden - they're purdy), the water bottle I left behind last week in Nakusp, a cat carrier. But the item that's occupying my attention this evening is the giant plastic rubbermaid box Mum and I found in the attic during my visit.

Mum was rooting around up there, looking for a specific pair of beige leather boots that match her mink coat (which Sister Ains won in the "Visiting Nakusp" lotto in September ...Now, I won Nanny's fox-and-mink coat in the "Getting Married" lotto in January 2004, so fair is fair. If truth be told, Ains is welcome to Mum's mink), and I was up there too, keeping her company while Sloane napped. On her way to the boots, Mum pushed past a particularly heavy box. That's yours, she said. It's full of old twenty dollar bills and letters from god-knows-who. I think there're a few menus in there, too, for whatever reason. I've had it for years... are you ever going to take it?

Hot diggity! sez I. Of course I'll take it! It's always great to dig through old archives.

Actually, I thought I had everything that could possibly be deemed "Ashley's stuff" moved to our basement, by now. I certainly know my parents feared over the years that my burgeoning archives (I keep it all) might overwhelm even their combined enormous capacity to store my shit. But I always maintained an official "I'll take it all when I have my own house" line. Which I did. ...Or so I'd thought.

Anyway, Mike kindly transported it to Calgary, and tonight I pried open the box, and disengorged the contents onto the kitchen table and floor.

The stuff: it's old. Like, it's circa 1993/94, and lots that's earlier. So we're talking about high school and early university, for me. That means memorabilia from the guilt-tripping Glockenspiel, it means an old favourite pair of pants - which at one time I thought were the height of bohemian style - now simply horrifying to behold, it means yearbooks from the 1980s that I'm afraid to open (Melissa, remember how I commented on your blog about having all those old yearbooks? ...You can take them!). I'll talk about bits and pieces here, but right now I want to address the letters (so to speak).

...Boxes and boxes and boxes of letters. From penpals, friends, relatives. I was a hell of a correspondent, growing up, and these are only some of the letters I got in return (in the established Chez Bristowe Turner archives downstairs, there are more. Many more. Like, hundreds and hundreds more). I look at the piles of mail I received over the years and it makes me realize how much time I spent writing, as a teenager, to possibly deserve this largesse. How much of my life got written down, as stories sent to other people? Obviously: lots. As an obsessive chronicler of my own life, I'm now insanely curious about the contents of those letters sent to everyone else, written a decade and more ago.

And so. I propose a trade.

I know most people aren't as interested in their own written history as I am in mine, and I realize that most of the people I wrote to over the years don't have my letters saved in a box somewhere.  But I have some great letters from lots of people, and I'm totally willing to send you your letters back to you, if you're interested. I think that probably a few of you have letters I sent to you, somewhere... from Calgary, from France, from Queen's... and I'd love to see them again.

Obviously, I'm interested in getting my own letters back. However... if you don't have the letters I sent, anymore... well, I'm willing to send your letters back to you, anyway. I know how interesting it is to read your own lost handwriting years and years after the fact, so I'm okay with putting a bit back into the collective karma pile.

The following people may wish to be in touch with me (via the comments) if they google their own name and find themselves here, reading this post:

• Tim Andison (I saw you last at your wedding in 1996 ... I wish we'd stayed in touch)
• Stewart Burdett (Hey - I eventually saw your movie; well done!)
• Jennifer Elliot (of 1990 Villefranche fame, also of Vancouver)
• Kaitryn Campbell (you're great, we're both mums... I'm so glad we met in the gael group, way back when)
• Matthew Currie Holmes (y'bastard... one of your letters from 1990 has the return address as: "The Fucking Dutchess of Windsor, Who Do You Think". ...I think you want to see these)
• Bene Giusti (French penpal in Cormery)
• Peter Kaiser (German penpal in Nordhausen - huge, huge piles of letters from you)
• Richard Luxford (Are you stil in Wales? Does the rain still fall mainly in pails?)
• Marnie Mymko (I know your married name is different ... lovely cards and letters aplenty)
• Jill Ogston (I've called you at your old phone number in Wpg and can't find you... I have TONS of your letters, from grade 3 to university)
• Jeff Orston (of STS... wherever did you go?)
• Elizabeth Passey (of Cheshire, now of London)
• Carrie Rathwell (years' worth of yours, plus some from your mum)
• Anne Sam (of Singapore... yeah, I know you don't want to be penpals anymore. I get it. But I have acres and acres of paper on which you've chronicled your life. Seriously, hundreds of letters. I'm glad to send it to you, if you like)
• Vanessa Stettler (we said we'd be friends again... and then never called)
• Ray Vela (my man in Oklahoma, no wait... Boston. No wait... OK, are you a lawyer? Whassup with you?)
• Barbara Warner (can't find your current contact info - I have a dozen great letters from you, thanks for being at my bridal shower!)
• T.C. Waugh (M. le opera man, I have possibly the only written correspondence of your university years)

This list doesn't include the people with whom I am still in semi-regular contact. Obviously this offer goes double for you folks ...among youse of more prodigious and ongoing output: Travis, Margaret, and Jenn Foley (I have old envelopes from your Lawrenceville days here!). Just be in touch by email, I'll send them to you, all.

Categories: Ash | Friends | Internet | Olden Days

Comments [2]

Typety-type

I hate forwards. I truly loathe forwards. I used to write each of my family and friends calm, gentle emails requesting that they not send me forwards of any kind. Some people persisted. Oh ho ho, they thought to themselves, this one's SO funny that I KNOW Ashley would enjoy it, despite what she says. Those people got reminder emails from me that were a bit less subtle. If there was a third breech of my requested ban, I sent out The Bomb email. It was pretty blunt, possibly "not so nice". Some of my friends and family didn't like me very much after receiving The Bomb. But I should say this: afterward, I didn't get any more forwards from those people.

It started to take more time than I had to compose those "please: DON'T SEND ME FORWARDS" emails. People obviously forgot to leave me off their lists on a regular basis, and although The Bomb worked, it wasn't a deterrent-type solution and I tried to use it as a last resort. Finally, I attached a "signature" to my email address that provided a sort of automatic message at the end of all the emails I sent out. It read:

Please don't send me forwarded emails under any circumstances - I don't want to receive them. Never send me jokes, or sweet poems about life, or "interesting" articles from the internet - even if you think that Bill Gates might actually be giving away money. Never send those amusing-because-they're-true lists, such as "10 Ways To Know If You're A Grad Student". Never send "funny" photos of cats, or satirical cartoons of Osama bin Laden superimposed onto the Dr. Strangelove missile, or even seemingly-legit virus warnings. Believe me, I would rather get the virus (highly unlikely) than get that forward.  ...I know you want to share forwards because they touched you in some way - in the heart, in the funny bone. Please: DO NOT share them with me. I will NOT be touched - I will delete the message, and the fact that you sent me a forward will affect my opinion of your character. So just to be perfectly clear: never, never, never send me forwarded messages. Thanks.

It was pretty long, but it worked. I think I got a number of raised-eyebrow "henh?"s from the people who got emails with that signature. But nobody who knows me ever sends forwards anymore, so in that way, it totally did its job. (The people who break rank get The Bomb right off the bat, now. Apologies to our neighbour Cheryle - I warned you!)

However. I accept forwards from one person, and that person is Mr. John Bristowe. John is a seriously big-time computer guy, a Microsoft developer-evangelist, and the Spiller Road Things-Computerish Troubleshooter extraordinaire. And he gets messages and forwards from people all over the world. But the boy has an excellent filter. He knows me, and he knows that I hate forwards. He is spare and careful in what he sends to my inbox, and to a one, I've always opened and read and enjoyed his forwards. I should note however that over the years he has forwarded me perhaps a dozen things, total. So when John forwards it to my email address, I know it's going to kill me.

Today's forward, lucky number 13:



I almost choked to death in my own kitchen, ill-advisedly drinking some tea while watching this animation. Priceless.

[Please: don't think you can match my brother's expertise and nuanced selective powers just because this made you laugh, too. Don't try me on your list for the next forward you send. Don't. I mean it.]

Categories: Internet

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