My Strange Correspondence with Mr. Nazrahad Chapter The First

This is Simon, assistant editor here at The Letters, and today I am inducting a new column for UF by recounting a very old, and very unusual, and very wonderful tale.  To bring you up to date with events as they stand thus far:

In late 2004, I had a movie review of the cult film "The Apple" published on the website of an alternative magazine. Generally receiving glowing praises (two and counting!) for my astute assessment of the film and the brazen critical skills employed therein, the review also elicited an unexpected response from a strange stranger named Melfy Nazrahad.  It turns out that while an amateur movie critic critic by day, Melfy was (and is) a hot tub salesman and family man from California who was such a diehard fan of The Apple that he insisted on refuting my assertions about this particular piece of cinema in a series of extremely lengthy and off-kilter e-mails.  Melfy's sense of humor was funny as hell, more than slightly deranged, and in a way I couldn't quite place, brilliant.

I countered his criticisms, and our e-mails evolved into a veritable chess match of high-minded debating skills, a bizarre linguistic entanglement from which I am still recovering - six years later.  The exchange is probably the verbal and literary equivalent of what transpired between Bobby Fischer and that Russian guy Trotsky or Spassky or whatever his name is, if those two chess geniuses had been hit over the head with croquet mallets and then forced to watch and love bad disco movies.  

What follows in several and ongoing installments, is the correspondence between Melfy and I in its entirety, as it exists and continues into perpetuity. For, yesterday, in March 2010, yes, 2010, I contacted Melfy yet again and about to inform him of the new incarnation of Unfettered Letters and his honored and esteemed place in its pantheon of mad scientists.   Here published unexpurgated and unedited for the first time, is the first installment of a now legendary conversation about film, about meaning, about Zen, about Life. (The original review of the Apple can be found at here.)

Like everything on The Letters, these epistles are authentic.  This is not a joke. [The following e-mail is left in its original state to preserve disorienting effect.]

Kindest sir,

I must cry out for your offenses!

The movie Apple is not how you represented in your review (September, 2004, Stop Smiling magazine)!!

I have seen this movie. And I have known now that is refreshing, poignent, telling and above all, TRUTHFUL!!

Sir, I have lived in both the 60's, 70's and 90's. The account of 1994 by, Apple, is 90% the god's honest realisation. May I ask why you come to such basic (although verbose) notions about Apple? Why do you hate Apple? Do you see yourself in Boogaloo? In the Bim? perhaps you should turn your analytical eye inward (to paraphrase Sir Anthony Fropkins in Hannibal) and ask yourself, 'Why do I hate Apple?"

Saturday NIght fever is just that, a fever and one I was glad to survive! The sheets of my young adulthood were drenched by its oily, sweaty filthiness. my heart cried for a movie to express how I felt about that dark time, and Apple was that movie!! Good dancing? GOOD dancing? Dear sir, Gene Kelly is good dancing, Katherine Hepburn is good dancing. John Travolt(ing)a is bad bad BAD!! When I saw Apple for the first time (in Hollywood, during its FIRST theatrical run...that's right, Apple had THREE theatrical runs! Can't say that for Saturnday Night Cleaver!) I stood up and cheered! I saw it ten times! I know the songs backwards and forwards. Apple became an extention of me, and to some degree I believes, it to me.

YOu may not be the biggest writer in the world, but you have to know that as a journalist you have limitless power! Your pen is mightier than a thousand rockets and twice as lethal! YOu might choke ou tthe life of something as beautiful and perfect as Apple by belittling its contributions to the world of csinema. What if you had lioved when Orsen Wells made War of the Worlds? YOu would have panned it! And then we would not have Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg today, telling that great story and making us smile. Because you punish the artist!! Would you prefer we lived in monastaries? Would you prefer we dare not dream of something challenging like Apple?

I like your style.

But, you need to learn responsibility.
i suggest you re-watch Spider-Man part one and 2 (with Jerry MaGuire) it is about responsibility. it is about knowing your own power. Right now, you are liek a baby bull in achina shop and the rest of us are trying to enjoy the plates!! (plates = Apple).

I once saw a movie where a guy said, "Do the Right Thing" (are you black?) ... his name was Spike Lee....are you familiar with him and his works? Well, get familiar, because he is right. DO THE RIGHT THING!

Retract your review of Apple! Watch it again! Write a new, meaningfull review...a FAIR one...a review that comes from not your heart, but your INNER heart. The place where love is made, and pumped to the joints. Do that, and I would wash your feet, NO LIES!

Of course, everyone is entitled to their opinion. If you choose to hate Apple, well, then your life sounds like a really boring thing! Filled probably with cupcakes, doritos and taco bell. Enjoy the FLUFFER NUTTER on that sandwhich, because it's a representation of your life philosophies!

I know what you're thinking.
This email is right, but how do I open my heart? That can only come from within. If I told you how to open your heart, it would make me a liar and a flase friend. No one has the answers but you. Do you know the band KISS? I met Peter Kris when I was a boy (my dad takes pictures of kids with bands). I asked him, "how do I do it like you live life?" and he said simply, "Take it slow, Serpico, the rest works itself out." I'm not saying that's true, but what the hell, it's Peter Kris, right!? I was 9, so I was impressed. Are you getting what I'm saying? That it's easy to listen to advice and take it, but it may not be right for you? That is zen.

Let's agree to disagree? That would make me sad. I know it's what you'll say though. You are a son of the age of reason (I'll bet) a real Benjamin Franken and John Adams. Logic...reason...hate for thingsa that rely on the heart! The soul! The passion! THAT IS APPLE.

Get a grip.
Really. Before you respond to my email (I hope you will, because I like your writing, even though the content offends), think to yourself, "Is Melfy gone crazy? is Melfy a loser?" NO AND NO! I'm a great guy. I own an outdoor bath tub business in southern California and I have two kids (incidentally they LOVE Apple). I am a together guy, and I have great shirts. There's no reason to think I've lost it. I just think you gotta belive you know?

Like Steve Perry.
Steve Perry was in Journey (the band). He had a hit song where he sang, "Don't Stop Believing" And if there's one thing I'd communicat eto you, it's that. DON'T STOP Simon P. Agustine! Don't stop! But also, don't start believiung that everything yousay is the gospel. you are NOT Saint Augustus! (lol) you are a cool guy though.

How did you get into writing? I want to write reviews.
Maybe we could write a dueling review of Apple? Let me know, it would be a blast. maybe we could webcast it? I have the equipment to do it. YOu get your fans to watch.

OK. Hit me back with email, and let me know what you think of my thoughts.

YOur friend,

Melfy Nazrahad

Your pen is mightier than a thousand rockets and twice as lethal. If only, good sir, if only. The idiosyncratic spelling mistakes, the foreign sounding idiom, the sheer weirdness of his voice, intrigued me: this surely is a classic American voice in the making, I thought. How could I respond to this? Should I, and what danger could come to me? Stay tuned to find out in the next Me and Melfy posting.

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