A Letter to Shakespeare

Dear Bill,


Many describe you as a multitude of things: Legendary. Groundbreaking. Innovative. Inspiring.

But as for me, I have THREE words to describe you, supposed legend: Time-Traveling Thief. (Technically that could be considered two words, if you count the hyphen.)

Are you so desperate for a good story that you have to warp the laws of time and gravity just to get one? Do you have to take every thing we knew and loved growing up and twist it for your own profit? So that in some weird retrospect, we think that it was YOU that started it all?

I saw The Lion King. And it was good. It made me laugh, made me cry, and even made me reevaluate my life. Since that time, I have chosen to at all times put myself in the place of that young lion cub who dealt with the betrayal of his own blood. All while befriending a wisecracking meerkat and a loving yet dim warthog, of course.

Then all of the sudden, people are like, "Oh, it's based on Hamlet by Shakespeare, also a story of betrayal! All bow at the feet of Shakespeare!"

I don't know how you did it, but I know you, Bill, you wily son of a gun. I know Hamlet is just a cheap knock-off of Simba. Why didn't you just steal Timon and Pumbaa while you were at it? Or would that just be rude, you hack?

McClintock. One of the great John Wayne westerns. Definitely in my top three of all time. There's comedy, yet enough drama and tension to balance it all out. There's even a great mud fight scene that I continually rewind during each viewing.

And all of the sudden, here come SMART, WITTY BILL with "The Taming of the Shrew."

Are you serious!? How low of you to take a classic (and of all classics, a John Wayne classic!) and turn it into a boring comedy THAT'S NOT EVEN FUNNY! All the pratfalls, misogyny, and drunken fools have some kind of smart joke in jacked-up English that I don't get. The least you could do is make it entertaining, you stuffy, British kook!

I was willing to let you slide. People plagiarize all the time (except for me, though it would seem that way, for my writing sometimes appears to bear resemblance to the format of a college textbook), so I was going to let you go, Bill. Give you a second chance to reevaluate your position, much like yours truly after drying my eyes after watching The Lion King for the first time.

But then you did the unthinkable. You took yet another classic, maybe the greatest movie of all times, and did your worst.


ROMEO AND JULIET!

A heartbreaking drama starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. Untouchable, or so I THOUGHT! YOU COPIED IT WORD FOR WORD AND TWISTED IT, YOU SICK FREAK!

I cried at the end of that movie like a child who's discovered that Santa Claus is just a creepy old man who lives in his mother's basement. But when I read your version, I wanna run to the bathroom and throw up like it's New Year's Day and I've been partying all night long.

Like I said, I would've let you go had you just cheapened it into a different yet similar version, but you had to take this forbidden romance and slap your name on it like it was your own. You make me SICK!


I don't like you, Bill. I don't like you one bit. I love you, in the love of Christ, but in the love of me, there's a list, with the likes of Cher and parachute pants present. AND YOU'RE NOT ON IT. (Actually, you are, but I only put you there so I could cross you out, just to make the effect more long-lasting.)

You can play dead, you coward, but one of these days, I WILL find you. (I probably won't kill you, due to legal implications, but I might pinch your ear, thus causing slight discomfort and temporary irritation, and say something mean about your mother, like, "Hey, my mom makes better meat loaf than your mom. Take that, Mrs. S!")

You've been warned. Plan accordingly, because like a ninja, you won't see me when I'm coming. There is absolutely no retaliation against your sly acts, so I will be the first to find you. Prepare to have your time-warping world BUH-LOWN TO BITS!

Love (but not really),
Nate