The Meeting
Targeting the Russians
The hiss of the samovar announced the beginning of our editorial meeting here at the Mill. We were assembled in oakum room outside my office because it has a big table, normally used in conjunction with the cod head splitter. Around the table were seated our post-modern gang of idiots; Charles Van Ness, beancounter, The Gretchen sisters, our Danish programmers, some pot-head representative from the art department, and Peregrine, our fresh-faced editorial intern. This is how the meeting went:
Charles VanNess: When are the writers going to get here?
Gutbloom: Sorry, the calendar on my iPhone doesn’t say 2004. Writers, pffffft! This is a post-modern, distributed, hive-minded, peer-to-peer, un-re-con-struct-ed, artistic cooperative. When I need something written, I put it out to the ether, and the Interwebs responds.
Charles VanNess: We outsource all of the writing?
Gutbloom: Yes.
Charles VanNess: Then, what do we pay you for?
Gutbloom: *crickets*
Charles VanNess: Well, who in the ether wrote “What if the Hindus are Right?” That has taken off.
Gutbloom: That would be Carol, the Michigan mother of five that I met online at a petoskey swap.
Peregrine: What’s a petoskey swap?
Gutbloom: Part of the dark Internet, child, you wouldn’t want to know. Pee Wee, can you get Carol on speaker phone? (Editor’s note: Pee Wee is my flunky). While you’re doing that, I’m going to start the meeting. (stands, locks thumbs beneath armpits) I’m glad all of you could all make here it today. We have a situation, I’m afraid. The summer project is not going well. The pin-headed, suit-wearing, number crunchers…
Charles Van Ness: I’m not wearing a suit and my head is bigger than yours.
Gutbloom: … the servants of Mammon, tell us that our numbers are in the toilet. With the exception Carol’s latest offering, which, owing to the arbitrary preferences of the pack of fools known as “Internet readers” has had some success…
Carol: (on speaker phone) *clears throat*
Gutbloom: Oh, Carol! You almost took my heart away. Are you there?
Carol: I’m here, Chief. (sound of a dryer starting up can be heard in the background). I can’t stay long though, little Micky has an infected toenail and I have to get him to the doctor so the rat pack can start soccer camp tomorrow.
Charles Van Ness: Carol, Charles the account manager here, can you write more things like “What If the Hindus Are Right?” That article has taken off. The ad department is really pumped.
Carol: What about “Five Ways Humans Were Cheated by Evolution”? That’s flogging the same exact idea.
Gutbloom: “Repurposed”, Carol, we say “repurposed”, not “flogged” or “beaten to death,” when we just keep serving up the same old swill.
Charles Van Ness: The evolution article didn’t mention Indians. You should mention Indians more. Indians sell.
Gutbloom: Like cats?
Charles Van Ness: Not as well as cats. Cats, of course, are the gold standard of editorial interest, but Indians are money.
Gutbloom: Carol, you’re welcome to work on the beancounter’s attempts to cash in on past success, but as far as the rest of us are concerned, we will be looking forward. I have a plan.
Carol: (sound of dog barking, video games, and dishwasher being unloaded).
Gretchen 1: Can we get on with your idea?
Gretchen 2: Yea, why are we here? This couldn’t have been done through e-mail?
Gutbloom: I will start, but first, would anyone like some tea from the samovar?
Peregrine: I would love a cup of tea, but I don’t know how to use the samovar.
Gutbloom: Who the fuck hired an editorial assistant that doesn’t know how a samovar works?
Peregrine: You did. Why a samovar? Why not a K-cup machine?
Gutbloom: The reason we got the samovar is because the way we are going to pull this stupid Medium account out of the doldrums is by making fun of Russians.
Charles Van Ness: Russians don’t sell.
Carol: I gotta go (hangs up)
Gutbloom: The reason I have you two here (looks at the Gretchen sisters) is because if we go poking at Russians it could open us up to some ugly security problems. I will see their Russian programmers with my Dutch programmer (points to Gretchen 1) and raise them another Dutch programmer (points to Gretchen 2).
Gretchen 1: We’re Danish, not Dutch.
Gutbloom: I always fuck this up. Who has ham?
Gretchen 2: Us.
Gutbloom: Tulips?
Gretchen 2: Them.
Gutbloom: Hans Christian Andersen?
Gretchen 1: Us.
Gutbloom: Relaxed sexual mores?
Gretchen 2: Both us and them.
Gutbloom: I need you guys to sharpen your pencils. You make fun of Russians, you’re going to get burned.
Gretchen 1: Burned, as in, “skin blistering from nuclear fallout”.
Gretchen 2: Your lungs on fire, while a dog licks the head of your decapitated wife.
Gutbloom: Who did the art department send? Let me guess, it’s the kid with dreadlocks asleep on the table.
Peregrine: That would be Sloan.
Gutbloom: Sloan, get out your art books and get ready. I want Malevich, not some weak-assed Chagall references.
Sloan: I’m glad I was woken up for that fascinatingly stupid piece of direction. How about a tuna fish sandwich?
Charles Van Ness: I’m going to have to talk to Mrs. Bottlesworth-Potsdam about this. I think mocking Russians is a bad idea. There’s no upside that I can see, and, this post in particular is doubling down on what doesn’t work.
Gutbloom: What? Our true readers love these posts.
Charles Van Ness: The posts; Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself, Summertime: When the Dreck Comes Easy, and A Visit From Charles Van Ness, have, collectively, zero recommends. “Zero” as in none, bupkis.
Gutbloom: That’s because we have no true readers.
Charles Van Ness: Nothing sells without readers.
Gutbloom: That’s not so. Cats still sell. Cats sell in a vacuum. Cats sell in space. If you go to the deepest, darkest, parts of the Internet, down below the trolls where no human can live, you can find cats. Cats were here before the Internet. At one point, there was nothing but cats.
Charles Van Ness: Can you end the meeting, so we can go back to work?
Gutbloom: Peregrine, refill the samovar and plug in my iPhone for me. Pee Wee, sound the meditation gong. The meeting is adjourned.
