dear bill gates,

let me write your blog.

richest man in the world and no one really knows anything about you.

i know you wrote a book, but who reads books any more? i sure as hell dont.

i read blogs. i think everyone reads blogs nowadays. everyone i know at least.

heres what we do. i move up to seattle. either i can live in that crazy huge house of yours or you hook me up with something downtown. then every day i get to shadow you and i write about it.

if shit goes over my head i’ll say so.

11:45am, im sitting in the east campus and im in a meeting with bill and mohammed and opal and jerry, shits really going over my head but bill just cracked this super funny joke that i think he stole off futurama.

maybe you dont remember me, but i used to work for you very briefly. i was an outsourced employee for webtv and then when you guys bought webtv, i was an outsourced employee for msft. maybe you saw me at comdex. i was the guy right next to the porsche telling all the cameras about the new webtv plus.

5:09 pm, i challenge bill to three shots of 151, he talks me down to two cuz he claims he has to drive home. i remind him that one of the interns can drive us both home. so he says yes to two shots of 151 and a half a beer. we end up talking about the portland trailblazers and laugh and laugh and laugh. hes got a funny laugh.

sure i want to know about how smart you are, cuz i dont really really believe that youre as smart as you were lucky. but you did hold on to your head start so maybe you are smart, or maybe you got the smart people to work for you. and if you are that smart, i want people to know that the smart people can end up successful, cuz thats not how it always is.

and if youre lucky i want to go to vegas with you and find out how lucky you really are.

7:20pm, still drinking. we’ve sent out for cough medicine. bill says hes never had a flaming moe. i called him a liar and he took off his glasses and said right here! and dared me to a brawl. i think he meant it. i made a fist and three robots shot me with paralyzing darts and i froze for three seconds. he stepped aside and three totally different robots shot me with unparalyzing darts and i was able to complete my punch, missing, and fell on my face to a chorus of hoots and hollers. gotta admit, it was pretty awesome.

bill gets me a screwdriver and reminds me that hes the fucking man, tosses a peanut into the air and it nearly chips a tooth.

one thing i dont want to write about is money. money is the red herring in your life. its the fakeout. and im not interested. im far more intrigued by you as a person. someone who has great pressures, and a strange little monopoly that everyone likes to bitch about but no one is courageous enough to defect from.

i want to tell people about some of the cool projects coming down the pipeline. i want to tell people and show people that youre a real man with real issues and real concerns and real headaches.

being famous and powerful and smart and still pretty young and at the forefront of the biggest thing in this new millenium has Got to be trippy as all hell.

it needs to be blogged.

and that job would be worth it for me to leave the comfort of southern cal to go do.

but only for a year.

and if it turns into a book, i would want all the money to go to charity.

your pal,

tony

makeout city + flagrant + vodka pundit

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