A Futile and Stupid Gesture Page #3

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You want to be a writer,

write a novel on the side,

something your parents can show off

on their credenza.

I don't need to impress

my parents or their credenza.

Strike three!

The kid's got an arm.

Nice job, guys.

I have things I want to do with my life.

No, you have things

you think you're supposed to do.

What you want to do

is keep on doing The Lampoon.

- Oh, Biomechanics of the Human Bladder.

- Thanks.

I've been looking everywhere for that.

You want me to give up a career

in law to rely on you

and start a humor magazine

which will undoubtedly fail.

It won't. Or it might. It might.

- But this will be big. I can feel it.

- How big?

This big.

You're thinking too small.

It should be a big magazine size.

See? That's better.

I threw something out, you made it better.

That's our partnership.

You don't want to throw that away.

If we're running our own magazine,

we can do anything we want.

- We could publish knock-knock jokes.

- Knock knock.

- Who's there?

- Me.

- Me who?

- Me not doing the magazine.

- That can go in issue one.

- Let me ask you this:

with The Harvard Lampoon,

how many deadlines have we missed?

- None.

- All of them.

- All of them?

- We've never made a deadline.

You really don't think you can rely on me?

- No.

- I challenge you,

name a thousand times I let you down.

- Number one...

- Okay, that's not the point.

Look, I know it's risky, okay,

but why let it end here?

The truth is

I can't do this without you, man.

- Half the time I feel like a fraud.

- And the other half?

The other half, I feel like

the second-smartest guy in the room.

I'm the smartest?

Yeah.

I promise you, it'll be fun.

And the day that it stops being fun,

we'll walk away.

Tempting.

Tempting. Yes!

I looked at your proposal

for Harvard Lampoon.

National Lampoon.

We would license the Lampoon name

from Harvard.

As we say in the proposal,

there is a huge underserved audience

for comedy that speaks to our generation.

Oh, and you think that's what

this country needs is a comedy magazine.

Kids need something to read

while getting tear-gassed.

Ha.

Shouldn't Harvard boys like you

be working on Wall Street

or at some law firm that overcharges me?

What do you want to do with your life?

There's a vast gap between Mad magazine

and the New Yorker...

I'm gonna stop you right here.

- Okay.

- I don't want to waste your time.

- I don't want to waste your time.

- We don't want to waste your time.

We publish Life, Fortune,

Sports Illustrated.

Right.

Magazines about what people

are interested in.

There's no business here.

You'll never sell a magazine.

No one will ever go to a newsstand.

I... I disagree.

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