dOC DOt

nEW YORK, February 1, 2000 - Barely one month into 2000, times are changing and changing fast. I'm exchanging the cubicle-clad drudgery of corporate dronedom for the bright new vista of websites and e-biz. You know, that place where windows are wide, ceilings evaporate, and floors are little more than afterthoughts. Specifically, I'm off to help upstarts become oligarchs, transforming myself into a sort of Doctor prescribing the medicine that turns dreams to riches as I dispense my new business card listing me as "Doc Dot."

Given the accelerated nature of my practice and the virtual cash flows of the Dot world to date, here's how I see my year unfolding:

Some time in March I'll swagger through the hallways of various financial organizations that now delight in sending me student loan repayment reminders. With a pair of Las Vegas showgirls on each arm, I'll fish out a fat wad of moolah and slap it into some hapless loan official's trembling palm.

"Will cash settle this nasty little matter?" I'll snicker, then turn on my heel, snap my fingers at the showgirls and peel off in an especially quick car "given" to me by an ambitious local auto dealer who wants to get in on some of my action.

Not content to remain simply debt free, in April I'll buy one or two of the colleges and universities I'd been slaving to pay off. At the moment of purchase, I'll demand that each school immediately change its name to Doctor Dot U. To justify the name change, and my newly self-appropriated title I'll also demand several honorary PhDs of Dotology.

Emboldened now with my new station I'll move into the philanthropic world in May, trying to do good deeds with virtual riches. First, I'll find something like a hospital for sick children, preferably in a poor neighborhood. I'll buy the place, promise to spruce it up and purchase the latest medical equipment. But when hospital officials inexplicably reject my demand that they re-name the hospital "The Doctor Dot Health Institute," I'll explode in a fiery rage, withdraw my offer, send henchmen to blast the place to smithereens, then personally take a sledgehammer to the rubble as I cry out in the "humiliation" of my rejection.

It's at this point that I'll develop a substance abuse problem complicated by lifelong depression and inability come to terms with my father's drinking.

My trial set for June will draw Internet headlines from around the world. Interest will peak further when I arrive at the courthouse - late - clad in little more than white cowboy boots, wrap-around sunglasses, a Viking hat, and natty leopard skin thong. Strutting up to the judge, I'll wink at all the jurors - staring on in silence, mouths agape. With global attention riveted on my finely toned and freshly tanned buttocks, I'll reach into the front of my thong for enough in stock options to buy the entire judiciary, finding my self "not-guilty" in the process.

Summer time will be one of self-celebration, as I mark my new "hero" status with a cross-country hot air balloon tour, traversing the world's great beach resorts, heaping piles of cash and stock options out to adoring faces and up-stretched hands below.

By autumn, I'll take my place in a special early edition of People magazine as the "Most Fascinating/ Sexiest Man Alive." A footnote here: I'll sue the magazine for "pain and suffering" when editors forget one of the zeros in a line describing the billions I've virtually amassed over the year.

As the leaves fall further I'll lose interest in the lawsuit, soon forgetting whether I won or lost. Shifting focus with extreme petulance I'll instead choose to settle-down, take-a-wife (30 to 40 years younger), raise-kids, spend-time-alone, reflect-on-life, read-the-classics, and bake-bread.

November will be my anonymous time, where various mediots (dot slang for media-idiots) speculate aloud on my life now as a recluse, occasionally spotted taking long country walks wearing burlap, or praying on the dirt floor of my new thatched roof basement - since converting to the religious sect that I secretly funded known as "Dot-Islam."

With little time left and a rich life lived, I'll make a feeble but warmly welcomed cameo appearance to accept an honorary "Lifetime Achievement Award" during a globally televised Christmas Day Special interview, live from Times Square – "Doc Dot: The Man, His Life, His Thong."

With unkempt gray dreadlocks, overgrown fingernails, I’ll sit quietly sipping warm birch-bark soup, reflecting on my fast life and times, the lessons I learned, and what's become of the world since.

The earnest interviewer – who’ll I carefully avoid calling a mediot - will sit forward probing, "Doctor, for our December viewers far too young to remember back to your halcyon days in the Februarys, Marches, and Aprils of this year, tell us what it was like?"

After another slow sip of soup, I'll peer into the camera through tired, seen-it-all eyes, and shake my head in wistful dismay.

"Kids today can't possibly understand the first half of this year. Those were very, very different times. I can only say they were days of great promise when any cubicle clad corporate drone could grab a balloon, strap on a thong, and call the world his own - all without making a dime."

Yours Truly,

Xandor
Copy Boy In-Chief

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