To Whom It May Concern:

This letter is in regard to BEAST issue #93, which features a blatant, Warning Bros. trademark-infringing cover bearing the title “Sunni Tunes.”

I was all ready for the opening of the mail on Tuesday. Mail is a big deal around here, as it is up there on earth. Richard Pryor was emceeing the whole thing and down here, let me tell you, he’s always on fire. I mean, we go all out here in Hades, we don’t do things half-assed is what I’m saying. Mozart was playing the “Requiem,” our traditional mail song. Not because it’s an unhappy occasion, mind you, or because we’re grim, death-obsessed people—well, except for the Shiites. The fact is, Mozart absolutely refuses to accompany Mel Blanc doing Porky Pig on “Tutti Frutti.” “Zere eez doo mudge ztuddereng!” he screamed the first time we tried it. “I ken nut geep zee gud tiyem!”

He has offered in the past to “compromise,” but I hardly consider Richard Marx’s catalog meeting me halfway. Quite frankly, the very suggestion demeaned us both. This is Hell, not a dentist’s office: we want to torment people, not kill them outright. I can’t complain, though: we do get to hear the “Requiem” in its entirety. I bet you’d all like to know how it ends—it’s eating you up. Ah, what’s the difference, anyway? People these days don’t care about history or classical music. Let’s just say Van Halen’s “Jump” isn’t a completely original composition.

I also have in my possession the final episode of “Twin Peaks.” You’d like that, wouldn’t you?! Oh, yes, you would. Bwahahahahaha!

Anyway, we patched through the satellite hookup, so the pope could do the blessing. I know, I don’t really go in for that stuff myself, but there are a ton of Catholics down here. Hell is positively lousy with them and they’re the pushy sort. Death doesn’t mellow them out, at all. Oh, for lazy people, they’re very presumptuous. “I was promised such and such!” And not a reader among them: “Check the fine print, the fine print,” I say. I had Einstein do a count once and, as far as we could figure, there were maybe 200 Catholics in all of Heaven. Two hundred, in the whole place—the rest are sweating it out down here. But hey, it makes them miserable, all the guilt and fear, which makes my job a lot easier. I gave up trying to scare them myself a long time ago.

So, Benedict is yammering on and on and then Pryor yells, “Wouldja hurry up, ya Nazi mofo?” I tell you, the whole place went nuts. Everyone lost it. Andre the Giant had to give Orson Welles the Heimlich: Welles coughed up Brando whole. It’s a running feud with those two.

Finally, Matthew Sheppard wheels in the cart of letters, care packages and well-wishes from admirers, and the odd fruit basket. Those are especially nice in the winter, what with strawberries so expensive. No wonder the Mexican pickers call it “fruta del Diablo.” I tell you, I eat them—strawberries and Mexicans—by the ton.

I have to say, as much as I’ve always looked forward to reading letters from friends, as well as Matt Lauer’s postcards from his “Where in the World” assignments (he’s much funnier in private correspondence), I’m getting a little tired of seeing so much stuff from the White House in the pile. I mean, how many times can one read, “Peas mayk me lawnger benis,” before it gets old? Especially when the envelopes are stuffed with loose bunches of Smarties candy and dead hamsters. That’s not a sacrificial offering, it’s just disgusting. It’s pretty funny watching Andy Dick eat the Smarties, though. He acts like he’s high, like we don’t know the difference, a total poseur. We dump them on the floor and take turns kicking him in the ass. Rosa Parks wound up so hard, she popped one of Andy’s testicles. We all watched Andy doing an interview the other night, he couldn’t sit straight. It was hilarious.

Cheney, though, he really takes the cake: Everything is “Kill Lynn,” “Kill Mary,” “Kill the Idiot,” “Give those kids cancer,” “Kill Iraq, Kill Africa, Kill Alex Trebek,” “Make it rain blood and Twinkies.” Who does this guy think he is, ordering me around? Plus, I’ve told him a million times: I don’t handle any of that crap. Killing, especially. Yuck, it grosses me out. Talk to the, ahem—“man” upstairs. A lot of good that’ll do: in a billion years, he still hasn’t fixed the leak in my bathroom ceiling. I have to pay someone to come in once a month and clean out all the single socks and half-dead turtles.

And I’ve already had my lawyers contact Cheney about impersonating me. It was flattering, at first, but now it’s just out of hand. A bunch of lost souls mistakenly show up at his house—and who can blame them for being confused?—and he just plays along, putting them to work. Alberto Gonzales was supposed to deliver a shipment of strawberries, dressed as a strawberry, to me over a year ago. But, I digress.

I’m opening the mail, when I see my copy of The BEAST has arrived. Late, as usual. I see

it’s the religion issue—an idea I’d been proposing in emails for a long time—so I start thumbing eagerly through it. Lots of Muslim jokes (those never get old), excellent essays by Uthman and Murphy, as well as hilarious cartoons—“Mohammeduke” was priceless. But before I know it, I’m at Kino and then Scopes and then…Ads. That’s it. All seven of my scaly peckers went limp. That hasn’t happened to me since Shelley Long left “Cheers.” She was just so…chaste—and Kirstie Alley’s never done it for me. I’m trying to get a permit for an In-N-Out Burger next door to her house.

In my blind rage, I mistakenly crushed my abortion hoagie and ate Matt Sheppard. He’ll be fine; I just wouldn’t wish my irritable bowel on anyone: The Cowsills are the new house band in my large intestine and I hear Marx is handing out some new pamphlet in my colon.

I can’t believe the nerve of The BEAST: Nothing about me. Not a word. That whole “Church of Satan” thing, you can just forget that. Fallon can save his breath, I’m not paying for that ad. Church of Satan, my ass. I told Anton LaVey a million times, “If you want to get laid, all you have to do is stop playing the calliope.” Instead, he rips me off.

This is the last straw for me. Oh, I’m always good for a cheap gag, albeit in the guise of Tim Curry, when you need some hokum about endorsing Bush/Cheney or breaching a contract with Republicans. But I never get the accolades. I’m not “Loathsome” enough for you people? People are terrified of me! They’re idiots, yes, but nevertheless…More people, especially Americans, worship me than all the other religions combined. Why do you think humanity is so rotten? Why do you think Disney is so successful? Because they’re all about fun? Ha!

Whose friggin’ name is on the paper?! Mine! I am The Beast. I deserve better—Fallon literally owes me. When our kids got mixed up at the hospital, I could have just kept quiet about it and stiffed him with my layabout five-trillion-and-twelfth son. If you ask me, the infant Fallon learned infinitely more in those few hours spent at my house than he’s learned in his whole lifetime since. Only three beings in all of Creation know how to turn cats inside out with their minds, and as far as I know, Bea Arthur doesn’t reside in Buffalo.

This is the thanks I get. Debased, ignored…Represented on the cover by Tim Curry, a limey who played a homicidal, pedophile alien clown in a miniseries. I invented waffles and polar fleece. I dated Julius Caesar and his horse at the same time. I broke up Creed. And this is how I’m rewarded.

Mark my words, The BEAST will pay for these indignities. I’ll make your worst nightmares come true. I…I…I’m going to make congress pass another tax hike on cigarettes—and then I’m going to make them taste like ham salad!

Most sincerely,
Lucifer Beelzebub

Our response: Jeez, and we though God was vain! This is even more pathetic than the indignant voicemail we got from Shiva. Dude, it’s just not blasphemy to pick on the Devil. Plus, you’ll always have the American Spectator, right?