March 19, 2002
I Am Fucking Rich

THE POST OFFICE workers are now protected like the goddamn Pope, you know, sealed up inside plexiglass boxes which even Imperial Stormtroopers couldn't blast into. At least they are around here. You walk into the post office and there they are, pathetic, trapped, so safe they can't even get out any more, holding up signs like PLEASE CALL MY WIFE AND TELL HER I CANNOT GET OUT. What really makes me pull out the old hip flask and take a contemplative snort is the question of who, exactly, we're protecting out postal workers from. Isn't it usually the postal workers who end up shooting up the post office? In those situations the plexiglass cages will just make the murderous postal workers' jobs easier, since their coworkers will be trapped. Although the ricochets, I think, will be a bitch.

Of course, I look at the security cages in the post offices around here, and I think to myself what anyone in my shoes would naturally think: "When I'm rich, I'll have my whole house built out of that stuff, and I'll challenge the cops to come get me."

This inevitably leads to wonder when the hell I'm going to be rich. This is just taking way too long. I decided to analyze The Inner Swine's books and see if maybe there's a reason I'm not rich yet. Most ziners claim to lose money or - maybe - break even on their publishing exploits. We do it for the love, right? And certainly I love it so much I've never really considered how much anything costs, which means I am a total financial fuckhead. But hey! You can't write good and be a bean counter at the same time. It's a physical law, go look it up.

First, let's examine the costs involved in creating a single issue of The Inner Swine. Naturally, every issue is actually priceless. You just can't put a number on a creation of such passion and awe-inspiring artistry. Well, you can, of course, and I'm going to in a few sentences. What was my point again? Never mind.

So every issue costs me about $155 to produce and distribute. Multiplied by four issues, that is some number over 155....calculator...calculator...uh, that's HOLY CRAP! That's $620 a year I spend on you people! I can't believe it. It is just suddenly so not worth it. All the joy of self-publishing just drained out of me and pooled on the floor here, a cooling mass of enthusiasm. Ah, but look at my gnomes and midgets, dancing so gaily! They cheer me so, and give me the will to go on.

It can't all be vinegar, so let's take a look at monies earned through the zine, and yes, I say that with a straight face. I will not be naming actual numbers in this section because it ain't none of your damn business how much money I make or lose by breaking off pieces of my genius and mailing them to you, bubba. So we'll use imaginary numbers. Using imaginary numbers, I made roughly jumbabwa dollars in 2001, which is great because there's actually some money left over when you subtract what I spent from jumbabwa. Not enough to retire on, but beer money. To be honest, I never looked up from my humble middle class beginnings long enough to dream of anything more than beer money, so it's all good.

But the fact remains - beer money and jumbabwa aren't going to make me rich, and my dream of owning an entire island on which to conduct my secret experiments with genetically-altered human-like animals I will call humanimals continues to elude me. There's so much money in the world, yet I have so little, it's mysterious. In my biggest writing year ever, capitalism-wise, I earned $1600 directly from writing. That was a lot more than jumbabwa. At my job, I earn twenty times as much, so you figure that to maintain my level of beer-intake and cable-fondling, I'd have to start generating at least 80% of my current salary through writing. So far, I am about 78% short. Or, in imaginary numbers, polugula short.

I can see my treasured plexiglass bulletproof house flying away...the gnomes and midgets gather around me excitedly, shouting "One of us! One of us!"...and I stare glumly at the stack of $1 stamps waiting to be used to mail issues to ungrateful bastards, like you. I wonder why no one ever steals stamps. They're money, after all, in a sense. Where's the mafia? Why aren't they hauling off millions of dollars in stamps and selling them at half price on the street? I ask only because I'd be one of their willing customers. Then I could list ‘postage' as ‘stolen' too. And suddenly jumbabwa gets to be a much nicer number.

Oh well. None of you care, I'm sure. I'll keep handling the money matters, you bastards, which is just more shit I gotta do, and you can just keep on assuming fake identities and asking me for free ‘sample' issues because you won't spare $5 for a sub. I'm on to you! I'm on to all of you! Just wait until my House of Pain is completed. You'll all pay.

Anyway, until next time, I remain...

Jeff