Dear Billionaire

 

For billionaire eyes only!


 


Dear Billionaire:



I'll confess it right from the start, I have not been a huge fan of the Oligarchy. I may have said a few sharp things about the ultra rich. I could have used such harsh words as "greedy", "cruel", and "narcissistic". I may even, embarrassingly, have said a few spicy things about the mere very rich, those feckless people pathetically flying commercial airlines first class and never having even the hope of leaving behind a museum of their own. Let's face it, my just using the term "Oligarchy" is a kind of dead giveaway on my position.

But I can admit when I'm licked.

I'm licked, truly I am.

This is not an unprecedented recognition for me. I can't tell you just how deeply I despise CenturyLink, a giant corporation you may, for all I know, practically own, but faced with brutally truncated options I swallow the bitter pill and annually renegotiate my price for their Internet service through gritted teeth. Only the small thought of later viciously satirizing them is there to comfort me through my ordeal. That's just life down here on the streets of America.

It's like what Chief Joseph said:

Hear me, my Chiefs! I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.

And I won't. It's over. I sadly must accept immutable reality.

That is why I am here, humble in your presence. That is why I am here observing the new forms of the world.

I am a writer. I am not just any writer, but I am the greatest writer on the Internet. How do I know this? Mostly I just keep telling myself so, and when I tell myself so I am in full agreement. So that's two votes already. Being such an important writer I could pursue the traditional, pre-oligarchy forms of plying my trade. I could blog. I could send work to magazines, seek agents, query publishers. I could apply for writer's grants or enter contests, I could, through the laborious, time and stamp intensive process, work my way into a tiny readership and a slow trickle of money. Perhaps my writing will spread, perhaps it won't. That would be up to a complex web of editors, academics, critics, publishers, and even the unwashed masses themselves.

But Chief Joseph surrendered, so to speak, and those days are over. Sure, everyone pretends they aren't. The game is still played. And if that makes people feel better I'm not going to condemn it. But the truth is, it's all on you. It's the billionaire's world. This, I concede, is your world. I will not hide from the truth anymore forever.

And that is why I am bypassing editors and publishers, the agents, webhosts, grant organizations, Universities, bookstore owners, critics, reviewers, casual and impassioned readers. That is why I am bypassing everything you or I would think of as normal for a writer with our old way of thinking, and I'm going directly to you, a billionaire. It is a new world.

I am submitting to you samples of my writing. No, you don't have to really do anything with them. The layers of the old world are gone. It's just you. If you enjoy them, as I'm sure you will, because they're really good, simply have your people cut me a check; a million dollars, a hundred thousand dollars, whatever you like. You're in charge. It's your world. I just write in it.

And what, you wonder, do you get out of sending me money for my writing?

I don't know. Nothing? Don't you kind of have a lot already?



With many thanks and kind regards,



F. Calypso