Thursday, April 30, 2009

My Brush With Greatness

In a complete betrayal of journalistic ethics and public trust, TIME magazine just named my friend Jeff Kinney, author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, one of the "100 Most Influential People in the World."

Ha hahahahaha HA HA ha hahahaha!

(Hold on, let me catch my breath . . .)

In. The. World.

Heeheehee hee hee ha ha!


Jeff (left), me (right), and our mutual editor Charlie Kochman a couple years back. Touching Jeff is like kissing the Pope's ring, only saltier.

Hey Jeff, next time I'm in Boston, could you use your globe-spanning influence to find me a parking space?

Among all the "Best Conceivable Outcomes" a person might imagine when sitting down to write a book, would anyone ever in their wildest dreams think, "Hey, if this goes well, maybe I'll be named one of the world's 100 most influential people?" Ever?! The only thing better than teasing Jeff about TIME's recognition is knowing how uncomfortable it must be making him right now. I hope the day that he actually gets used to this kind of thing never arrives. In the meantime, may he enjoy it and accept the congratulations of a friend in the spirit it's intended.

snerk.


EDITED TO ADD: Jeff e-mails: "My first thought was, I can't even influence my wife to buy name-brand peanut butter."

Funny guy! And wise.
.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

So nothing rubbed off obviously? ;)

ronnie said...

I understand President Obama keeps a copy of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid next to his bed and closes his eyes and flips through it and points his finger at a random page in order to set the tone for his decisions for the day.

Rumour has it that Benjamin Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin do the same thing but that is so far unconfirmed.

(All three have placed pre-orders for Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow, so we'll see.)

Brian Fies said...

Anon: You are correct.

Ronnie: Perhaps when all the world's leaders at last read my book, we shall have peace. I will alert the Nobel committee to stand by.