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Satirewire Calls It Quits
stuyman writes "After almost three years, Andrew Marlatt, SatireWire's best (and only) employee is leaving the company. Says Marlatt "I all agreed it's time for me to move on...while the decision was certainly difficult, the meeting was actually quite harmonious. I brought doughnuts." He's going to start doing other things, and it has nothing to do with money. Read about it here. Satirewire has landed, please remain seated until we are fully stopped in the terminal area..." I owe Andrew some heavy laughter, and wish him good luck.
Thats it, I'm quitting the internet. It now holds no joy for me.
Theonlyuse of monkeys is to testthings onthem.Some peoplemay say"Hey That'scruel!"and myresponse is"I don't like monkeys
It takes a lot of guts to turn your back on a money-making venture just because you're no longer interested. Too many creative people -- writers, musicians, whatever -- keep going too long, for the money, and damage their careers and their reputations as a result. He's going out at the top, because he's noticed (as have most regular readers) that he's not as funny as he used to be. He'd stalled, but he has enough sense to bail out before he starts descending.
Seriously, I know he says it is not about money, but he's *really* funny, and he shouldn't be barely scraping by, making humor that's genuine and doesn't answer to anybody, b/c that's clearly what he loves.
After all, we may enjoy satirewire a great deal, but this funny man should be exposed to a wider, less geekocentric audience. Instead of doing a webpage, he should trade his notoriety for a job writing for a sitcom, and make good money while his humor is watered down beyond recognition and his imagination is crushed into dust.
Don't be sad because satirewire is gone! Don't be sad, DESPAIR, because the REST of our culture is a soul-destroying wasteland trampling and undermining the human spirit.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
But you did not.
Time and again creative people will leave the game when they are at the top. I forget who said it, but a nice answer that one creative person said to the question of why they chose to stop while at the zenith of their success:
I would rather leave and have them ask "Why did you leave?", instead of waiting years after my heart was no longer in it, and then have them ask "Why didn't you leave?"
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Cast a Cold Eye
On Life, on Death
Horseman, pass by
--W.B. Yeats' gravestone
"It is a rare mind indeed that can render the hitherto non-existent blindingly obvious. The cry 'I could have thought of that' is a very popular and misleading one, for the fact is that they didn't, and a very significant and revealing fact it is too."