Saturday
11/05/03
All Hail Mark!
There are times when it can be a lot of fun getting in on the ground floor. Well, at least I’m assuming that’s the case, having never done so myself… but picture the guy who was standing around on March 13, 1986 and said to himself, "Hey, this here Microsoft thing is going public. And $21.00 a share seems fair… I think I’ll buy myself a few grand worth of that." That guy now has his own island, but only because his yacht is too big to put anywhere else.
So anyway, I’m finally onto a little something here myself, and I’m feeling generous, so here it is so you can get in with me: Twenty years from now when we live in a dark dystopia run by one giant, malevolent corporation ( come on, all the SCI FI movies say it’s so) it will all have been started by a New Rochelle high school kid named Mark Douglas.
I kid you not. Last week I opened up to the first page of the lifestyle section in my local Gannett rag, the Journal News, and found a story about some junior achievers entitled Kids Can Make Money Like Magic. In it, a group of students had attended a lecture on honing one’s entrepreneurial skills, about which the young Mr. Douglas had this to say:
"I want to run my own business," he said. "I want to compete against somebody and then crush them. I want to show the power of my mind and get money."
Heck, if that’s not the personification of the American Dream realized in all its unfettered free market glory, I don’t know what is. In fact, the notion of Mark all grown up in a natty black suit with a shadowy army of corporate henchmen at his disposal nearly brought a tear to my eye.
But, as is so with many dreams, this one had a little wrinkle to it that may threaten the whole enterprise. As I read on, it turns out that the lecture was given at a public library by (again, I kid you not) a self-employed, balloon-animal-making magician. Oh the irony. Worse, it seems that lecturer Terry Parrett even ended the presentation by making balloon animals, swords and "goofy hats". What sort of show of malevolence was that? There he was, the hypocrite, in the end just following his own selfish muse by delighting youngsters with flights of balloon making fancy.
I can only pray that Mark rises above that sort of selfless tomfoolery and, as so few select, white male Americans have, reach his full potential. A potential as an economic and political powerhouse, flexing his newfound muscles just as did the beatific plutocrats from whose spirits he must have risen! All hail Mark! Huzzah!
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All Hail Mark!
There are times when it can be a lot of fun getting in on the ground floor. Well, at least I’m assuming that’s the case, having never done so myself… but picture the guy who was standing around on March 13, 1986 and said to himself, "Hey, this here Microsoft thing is going public. And $21.00 a share seems fair… I think I’ll buy myself a few grand worth of that." That guy now has his own island, but only because his yacht is too big to put anywhere else.
So anyway, I’m finally onto a little something here myself, and I’m feeling generous, so here it is so you can get in with me: Twenty years from now when we live in a dark dystopia run by one giant, malevolent corporation ( come on, all the SCI FI movies say it’s so) it will all have been started by a New Rochelle high school kid named Mark Douglas.
I kid you not. Last week I opened up to the first page of the lifestyle section in my local Gannett rag, the Journal News, and found a story about some junior achievers entitled Kids Can Make Money Like Magic. In it, a group of students had attended a lecture on honing one’s entrepreneurial skills, about which the young Mr. Douglas had this to say:
"I want to run my own business," he said. "I want to compete against somebody and then crush them. I want to show the power of my mind and get money."
Heck, if that’s not the personification of the American Dream realized in all its unfettered free market glory, I don’t know what is. In fact, the notion of Mark all grown up in a natty black suit with a shadowy army of corporate henchmen at his disposal nearly brought a tear to my eye.
But, as is so with many dreams, this one had a little wrinkle to it that may threaten the whole enterprise. As I read on, it turns out that the lecture was given at a public library by (again, I kid you not) a self-employed, balloon-animal-making magician. Oh the irony. Worse, it seems that lecturer Terry Parrett even ended the presentation by making balloon animals, swords and "goofy hats". What sort of show of malevolence was that? There he was, the hypocrite, in the end just following his own selfish muse by delighting youngsters with flights of balloon making fancy.
I can only pray that Mark rises above that sort of selfless tomfoolery and, as so few select, white male Americans have, reach his full potential. A potential as an economic and political powerhouse, flexing his newfound muscles just as did the beatific plutocrats from whose spirits he must have risen! All hail Mark! Huzzah!
