Dear Reader, in an effort to clear our accounts and our desks each March, we lay before you our laurels and our brickbats. (We noticed from the account books that we have gone through quite a few brickbats, without really knowing what a brickbat is, or where one might be obtained at a reasonable cost.)
We are proud of our many achievements over the years. You know, no government or private institution has ever been looted, thanks to our vigorous editorial policy. The availability of Chicago-style hot dogs is assured and sustainable. Ever notice how everyone stops courteously when a traffic light is on the fritz? This is the power of a pointed editorial during troubled times! We have also been staggeringly effective, we don’t mind saying, in keeping Whippy Dip stores in Iowa, where they belong.
Contrary to popular opinion derived from this astonishing record, though, The Rake’s influence is not unlimited. Here, in all modesty, we need to clear the air: We did not teach Fran Tarkenton how to scramble, although we certainly did not discourage him from doing it. We would have done everything within our power to stop the great disaster of the Third Avenue Bridge, but we were in traffic court when the City of Minneapolis built it. And despite expending great editorial resources on the matter, we have so far not succeeded in having Spoonbridge and Cherry moved to the city impound lot. (That garish yellow seventies sculpture, however—the one deposited at the farthest possible corner on the grounds of the Federal Reserve Bank? That was us.) We also wish now that we hadn’t cooperated in burning that last Minneapolis streetcar. (We were printed on highly flammable, uncoated paper at the time. Nostra maxima culpa!) We do say, though, that the recent troubling incursion of Asian attack carp has nothing to do with a small boat we keep moored in Northeast, nor the broken aquarium in the closet.
Never mind all that. Let’s try to focus on the good, people. With varying degrees of success, we have applied the full measure of our energy to the popularity of ice hockey, the proper care of Red Wing boots, the Brothers’ pastrami on rye, and that huge Long Island iced tea they used to serve at the Nankin. We have owned a secondhand purple blazer with Denny Hecker’s name embroidered in it.
One certainly cannot assess the success of a publication these days without mention of its “business operations,” and in this respect, we have far exceeded our modest editorial achievements. Our resistance to the “Best of the Twin Cities” issues, not to mention our refusal to print hundreds of alloy medallions and affix them to expensive sheets of congratulatory vellum, signed by our editor—well, there are signs that our efforts have slowly starved that particular illness. It has also saved our handwriting. The fever breaks, the sun rises, and all feel equal under the kind gaze of The Rake.
In other advertising news, we were still trying to land the Sliced Bread contract when it became the most popular campaign in memory—all on the rumor of a single quarter page sometime in the fiscal year! So powerful and relentless is our marketing muscle that the mere suggestion of an ad buy was enough to set off a panic in bakeries throughout the land. It was deemed unnecessary to go through the motions of actually printing that ad. Alas, the check was not tendered, either. The price one pays for being a pioneer!
People understandably want to know how we do it. Here is how: Paper, not plastic. Chocolate. Clarinets and tambourines. Rolling stops. Magic Markers. Big hair. AAA batteries. Yellow. Running in place. And of course, you, Constant Reader.
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