I finally delivered my keynote speech at the
Brewster Society convention — that was Wednesday — and I got back to my desk this morning after a day of travel to find more than the usual amount of Hate Mail stacked on its right corner.
Some of you might know that after the
brouhaha with Jerry Lewis, I brought in some consultants from McKinsey for an audit of our mail-sorting procedures here at Phutatorius & Co. McKinsey's work culminated in a stirring multimedia presentation, the likes of which I had never seen — dazzled by the
strobe lights, disco balls, and an appearance of the LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLE Guy, I had no qualms about reimbursing their $40,000 in expenses. In that presentation the McKinseyans recommended that I sort my Fan Mail pile into two sub-piles. These piles are called Support Mail and Hate Mail.
I should note straightaway that there was some discussion about leaving Fan Mail as a pile whole unto itself, and simply adding a separate Hate Mail pile. But I told McKinsey that "fan" is really short for the word "fanatic," and the word "fanatic" absorbs not only those who support me, but also the Morley Safers and Pierre Trudeaus of the world who write me weekly and call for my summary execution. "In that case," the consultant said, rolling his eyes in a manner that suggested I
wasn't paying him $400 an hour for his advice, "we'll recognize both Hate Mail and Support Mail as Fan Mail, but still sort these two
subspecies of Fan Mail into separate piles."
As a result, the Hate Mail goes on the right-front corner of my desk, and the Support Mail on the left, and by glancing quickly at the
relative volume of mail in the two piles — what? did you think I actually
read this stuff? — I can get a fair idea of my current standing in the world. That guy at McKinsey called it the "Stacking Index." I know, I know —
Stacking Index. LAME, I know, but the way he said it, with the bottle rockets firing out the side of his electric guitar, it sounded cool at the time.
And when I got back from the Brewster Society convention this morning, I took one look at my Hate Mail pile and gasped. Hate Mail stacked so high it was pressed up against the dropped ceiling, displacing one of the tiles (a pigeon somehow got up there, too, flew right up into the hole while I was gone, and the flapping up there all the time is annoying as hell.). In fact there was enough of it — and it was heavy enough — that my desk is tipped on three legs just holding the weight.
I have asked my interns, who actually do read this stuff, what all this Hate was about. They tell me that the bulk of it is the same complaint:
ya're not posting enough, ya bastid.
Well, people, I'm writing now. And I'm asking you to give a busy man a break. I can't be all things to all people all the time. It's not every day the Brewster Society comes calling, and it's not easy to sit down and write a twenty-minute speech about kaleidoscopes — particularly when you don't have the funds to commission a backing band, strobe lights, and the LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLE Guy to draw attention away from the lack of content in your presentation. I didn't even have a damn kaleidoscope for a prop.
So will you cut me some slack, people? I want to see my Support Mail pile rise by at least a foot within the week, or you might just find your good Phutatorius on strike through the holidays. And I tend to have some
good stuff during the holidays.
