My
Letter To Me,
The
Co-Editor-In-Chief
by Michael Zimmer
March 31, 2004
12:01 am PST
Dearest Co-Editor-In-Chief,
Having today reached a landmark in the august history of FLYMF, the unveiling of our second issue of hard-core hilarity, you would think that Co-Editor-In-Chief James Seidler and Associate Editor Nick Holle would show some excitement—a little brio, a pinch of élan…but you would be devastatingly wrong.
An event like the unveiling of a second issue, which places us firmly in the echelon of established humor mags like The New Yorker or the Heritage Foundation Newsletter, should provoke some enthusiasm in FLYMF’s erstwhile founders.
But rather than think about our future or make plans to build upon our success, these turkeys spend their days talking about robots, blimps, and, if you can imagine, robotic blimps.
Sitting in the plush, well-appointed offices of FLYMF, James Seidler does not celebrate our fantastically funny second issue or rev himself up for the debut of Issue 3, which is only four short weeks away. Instead, he contemplates ideas of such triviality that it’s hard to believe he can breathe on his own.
“Hey Michael,” he says. “Wouldn’t it be cool if you had these robots, see, and what would happen is, they’d turn into stuff, like cars and dinosaurs, but then they would turn back into guy robots…”
“They’re called ‘Transformers,’ James,” I say. “That shirt you’re wearing—that’s a Transformers shirt.”
“Yeah, but…um…yeah…well, okay…shit. Uh, what if they turned into monkeys?”
Nick Holle, who has this weird thing about monkeys, chimes in, “Huh huh huh huh huh, zoinks!”
He does. He says “Zoinks!” He says it all the time. I think it’s because he can’t say words that start with vowels. Honestly. Try to get him to say, “It’s interesting.” You end up with something like “Guh guh guh guh Mlack! Mlack! Mlack!”
It’s strange, like the fungus growing on Nick’s neck. And the annoying thing about the neck fungus is that he keeps stealing my roll of tape and using it to strip some of the fungus off. He doesn’t even cut off a piece of tape and then put it on his mossy neck; he keeps it attached to the tape dispenser as he pulls. So, not only is he screaming, “Zoinks zoinks ZOINKS!” as he rips the furry parasite off his neck flesh, he’s always getting fungus and blood and goodness-knows-what all over my tape dispenser.
What if I wanted to make a collage not drenched in Nick’s gore? It’s a disaster. And try talking to him about it. He won’t listen to anybody.
Even James can’t get him to stop. And they’ve developed a very special bond, folks. I think it started with a mutual admiration for the political writings of Beyoncé Knowles and has just branched out from there.
You have to admit that James has a certain charisma about him, you know, to which a weaker personality like Nick could be drawn. I think it may have something to do with James’s tendency of igniting grease fires.
You can’t spend six hours with James without there being a grease fire. Last night, when we were on deadline, all of a sudden a huge plume of smoke blasts out of the office bathroom. I run in with a bucket of water. James is standing there—freaking out—and the whole sink counter is going up. I’m about to empty the bucket on it and he yells, “No! It’s a grease fire! You’ll just spread it and make it worse! Get the baking soda!” I ran out to get the baking soda, but not before seeing Nick just watching the fire. He had this weird half-smile, his eyes emptily reflecting the flames. It scared me, bad.
Anyway, I got the fire out. I don’t know whether James was frying burgers in the bathroom or what. He wouldn’t say. The weird thing is, he’s a vegetarian.
Even with the fire, though, we got the issue out. I will say it is jam-packed with hardcore hilarity. How these ragtag misfits have put together so much funny stuff into one little web site certainly baffles me, what with their being neurasthenic dickwads.
But here it is—enjoy!
Yours Sincerely,
Michael Zimmer
Co-Editor-In-Chief
FLYMF
© 2004 Michael Zimmer, All Rights Reserved.
