Dear Former Client, Employer, Legal Adviser, etc.,
Good day! Holy Christ, you just fell out of your chair. Am I right, chief? You’re sitting there thinking: This fool’s still alive and trying to get back into making millions for everyone? Well, a lot of things are possible when you break off the engagement to your sex-worker fiancée, then kick the savage drug she kept you embalmed with. I may have lost your money in this bitch-whipped market that Baby Bush is still calling a bull run, but I have not lost the sense of decency to keep in touch, Mr./Dr. name name.
If you give a shit (sorry for the language—I’m drinking again), you’ll recall my promising to make you millions. Then you’ll recall my leaving a $12,000-a-month apartment in Manhattan to go tramping off to wind up living in a rented RV somewhere in Montana, Wyoming, and/or Idaho. I wish I had a better idea of which state I was a six-wheeled resident of when I was anchored in Yellowstone Park for those months of re-evaluation and detoxification, but I swear on the graves of loved ones that nobody could ever give me a straight answer as to what goddamn state’s territory I was parked/living in. One person tells you you’re in Montana, the next person says Idaho, the next swears up and down that you’re in Wyoming. The impression you start to get is that one could drink a bottle of fortified strawberry wine, get in the Winnebago, and do a doughnut that would swing her ass end through terra firma belonging to all three states. It was actually more than a mere impression; I did it routinely, and the Vietnam-vet drinking buddies I had made (Smilin’ Daryl, Elephant Man, Psycho, and Bouchie) told me I was literally, technically, swinging the back end of the Winnebago through all three states one night when I was fired up and doing huge doughnuts and broadies in the big field in the southwestern corner by the park’s main entrance. It was loud. Things always got loud when I confronted the demons inside me. A lot of weird shit starts to happen in your head when you promise to help people make millions, then have to face the fact that you’ve got a roster of clients who want to ask their money guru some pretty basic financial-planning questions. Questions like: Why were you blind for three days? How does a man call a simple escort service one night after work and then turn up three weeks later in an emergency room short three pints of blood, with a six-pound barbell padlocked to his penis and his mouth duct-taped shut? Where did my money go? I know, I agree! Hell, don’t you think I wanted a few answers, too?
Anyway, so, one night in the park, I was drinking and searching for some answers of my own, and had jumped in the rig to do doughnuts and blow off steam. And that’s when the pigs rolled on me and came on strong with their beef. Well, they cooled off real quickly when they saw the company I was keeping. Then the boys assured the ranger that he might want to go back to his shed or barrel or wherever they kept him. Then the boys told me to get back in the ‘Bago and entertain them with more of my antics, but I felt pretty lousy after they had to strong-arm and scare the park screw, who was just doing his job, so I said I wasn’t up for it and that we should tone it down a little for the rest of the night. Then Smilin’ Daryl just got drunker and very silent. He looked, believe it or not, like a little boy whose birthday party had been shut down early on account of bad behavior. Like a little kid who was told he was getting nothing but coal for Christmas. So I said, “What the fuck,” screwed up my nerve with another Strawberry Irish Rose, gave him a wink, and fired the steel horse up and let ’er rip all over that field again. And, get this: I ROLLED THE GODDAMN THING!
Little bit of a bind, to say the least, chief. The boys kept me out of the worst of it. They told me to get my shit out of the RV and stuff it up in a rucksack, they made an anonymous call to the ranger from the park call box, and then we all hid on the other side of the river there. When three guys from RV Rents USA came into the park along with a big diesel tow truck to winch the beast off her side and drag her back up onto the road, Psycho and Smilin’ Daryl jumped up out of their foxholes and, faces all camouflaged with moss and barbecue charcoal and shit, power-walked across the river the way only former Dong Nai assassins can. Then they made it pretty clear to RV Rents USA that this was going to all go down real easy without cops. The RV Rents USA guys were told to simply drag their goddamned top-heavy, overpowered RV out of the park before it killed somebody, tow it back to their lot in Bozeman, and that would be the end of it; no harm, no foul. The RV rental guys were all too happy to go along with the plan.
Anyway, look, I’ve spent too much time bullshitting here. Here’s the thing: I’ve set up shop again. Yep, website, doing a newsletter, the whole nine yards. Do you want to make north of 40 grand a month?—because I’ve got something in the bag finally. Direct marketing meets reverse mortgages. People can’t give away houses for food out West right now, but I’ve got a reverse-mortgage scheme that is generating liquid rev for five clients as we speak. I’m letting one more person in. I’ve thought a long time about who it should be, and it’s you, client/contact name. I’ll be in touch soon (no pressure) to get an initial payment from you so I can get you started.
The past is the past. You wanted to make millions and you didn’t. (Plus, you lost what you put on the table.) We could argue back and forth and point fingers all day, but what sense would it make?
I forgive you—
Dan Kennedy