Skip to primary content

Memorandum | Feb 10 2003

Date: 2/10/03
From: CEO
To: All staff
Subject: Opportunities

Site statistics are in for January, and I have bad news: Our numbers are down for the first time in the history of this website. While this is no reason to panic, it does indicate a leveling off of interest in our core product: Michael’s obsessive and depressing writing.

I’ve spoke often about perspective. We have no problems, you’ve heard me preach, only opportunities. Now that philosophy is being tested.

I don’t have all the answers here, but I do sense the need to expand our strategic horizons. We need to look in a new way, both within and without, and bring new vitality to our work. It all comes down a single word: humor.

Michael, as many of you know, can be quite funny in person. People often laugh when they’re with him. To give a single example: One time he got into bed with a woman and immediately turned over as if to go to sleep, then after a brief pause said, “You asleep?” We need to find a way to incorporate this kind of dead-on humor in future pieces.

It can’t be all gloom and doom. Not that there’s anything wrong with gloom and doom—it’s real, it’s moving, and let’s face it, it’s sexually compelling. But life is about more than doom and gloom, and the same should be true of this website.

Take Paul Ford’s goatrilla piece. What the hell is a goatrilla? I don’t know, but that picture Paul made was funny. Granted, Michael doesn’t consider the goatrilla piece the best thing Paul’s ever written, but so what? There are only three websites Michael will deign to read, so who cares what he thinks? We need to find a way to introduce goatrillas to Oblivio without diluting our core message or forgoing our core capabilities.

Of course I don’t mean goatrillas per se (although a few goatrillas wouldn’t hurt anyone), but rather the idea of goatrillas.

No one needs to tell me what Michael would say to this, but you know what? I’m tired of what Michael would say to things, and I think our readers are too.

For example there’s the cliff thing. In a recent piece, which I for one found humorless and depressing, Michael recycled an idea he used sixteen months ago in an equally humorless, equally depressing vein. Obviously the man is super-fond of this idea. We’re in a car, he says, that’s hurling down a cliff, and this car has no steering wheel and no brakes, and so on and so forth. Okay, fine. You already said this. If you insist on mentioning it a second time, how about adding a twist to make it new? Like, I don’t know, a goatrilla. There’s a goatrilla in the car and it’s doing something funny, something you wouldn’t expect a goatrilla to do. Again, I don’t mean a literal goatrilla, but something different, something new, something with the head of a goat and the body of a gorilla (just kidding).

I’m not sure if everyone knows this, but Michael can imitate the sound of a trumpet with his mouth. It’s actually more like a cross between a trumpet and a trombone, but whatever it is, it’s damn convincing. Combine this with the “squeezy” sounds Michael can make with his hands, and you’ve got a pretty rousing rendition of When The Saints Go Marching In.

My point is this: We don’t need to look elsewhere for answers; it’s simply a matter of recognizing what we have.

Did you know Michael writes jokes? It’s true. Admittedly he’s only written one, and this was many years ago, but that one joke has an unmistakable jokiness to it, which is something we all can draw inspiration from.

—What do parents in India say to their children when they feel they’ve been neglected their spiritual duties?

—You must pray more. There are spiritually starving children in America.

Bada-choom.