Wry Martinis (18 page)

RED suggests that it makes prudent, even urgent, economic sense to remove the polyethylene foam from inside the seat cushions and put it where it can be more profitably used—namely, in the passengers’ food. (See Tab B—Polyethylene Foam: Tofu of the 1990s?)

As for the inflatable life rafts, these items are both bulky and heavy. They take up space that could be more profitably used for passenger seating (see below), and they increase drag and reduce lift, putting strain on the engines and requiring more fuel. KED recommends that these be sold, and replaced with smaller and lighter substitutes—yellow bags filled with shredded in-flight magazines.

3. T
HE
C
OCKPIT
. While employing pilots, copilots, and flight engineers was once desirable, even necessary, sophisticated computers and flight systems can now do their work far more efficiently. (How many times has the NTSB attributed a crash to “computer error”? Not many.) Additionally, computers do not demand raises, require medical or pension plans, go on strike, or participate in profit sharing. (See Tab C—Rethinking Profit Sharing: Whose Airline Is It, Anyway?)

A possible solution: As you are only too well aware, AeroAmerica’s policy of terminating female flight attendants over the age of fifty has met with stiff—and very costly—legal resistance from their union, and has resulted in unfortunate (and grossly unfair) publicity. Would it therefore not make sense to take these troublesome flight attendants, pay them half or a third of their former salaries, put them in pilot, copilot, and flight-engineer uniforms, and stick them in the cockpit? This would kill many birds with one stone: (a) passengers peeping into the cockpit on
entering and leaving would not become agitated on finding no one there; (b) the aging flight attendants would be grateful to have jobs, even at reduced salaries; and (c) AeroAmerica would be seen to be in the forefront of women’s rights.

4. S
EATING
. Though passenger-satisfaction questionnaires often reflect dissatisfaction with existing seating configurations, our research has determined that seventeen inches is more than generous for the average passenger’s posterior, and that ten inches of legroom is probably adequate in most cases. Over the centuries, the human body has shown it-self to be almost infinitely adaptable. RED recommends reducing current posterior allotments to fourteen inches and legroom to six inches. (See Tab D—Coffins, Tiger Cages, and Cattle Cars: Masterpieces of Ergonomic Design.)

5. E
MERGENCY
M
ASKS
. Does it not strike management as odd that as we are reducing passengers’ air supply we continue to supply them, gratis, with
oxygen
?

—
The New Yorker
, 1993

Given homelessness, recession, blah blah, short-term fallout admittedly may be damaging. But medium/long-term we recommend an aggressive spin strategy to reverse perceptions stemming from the piece. Goal: insuring that portrait of you that ultimately emerges is neither “Marie Antoinette” (page 12) nor “Madame de Pompadour” (
ibid.
) but, rather, concerned fighter for the country’s economic welfare. Talking points (key buzz words in CAPS) for future media hits:

1. Re cost of Fort Worth house: $3-million wall, $12-million landscaping, helipad, lake-size fountain, etc. Complacent Easterners may not understand this, but Texas is hurting. Oil prices down, unemployment soaring, lives ruined. We (that is, you and Mr. Bass) choose the SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE course of plowing money back into the Texas economy as LABOR INTENSIVELY as possible. The
W
article teemed with inaccuracies, but at least got it right in saying that the Crestline Road PROJECT involved “an army of workmen … one-hundred-strong.” Assuming a normal family of four per workman, that makes four hundred people who directly benefit (clothing, food, tuition, etc.). Sid (that is, Mr. Bass) and I have always felt that trickle-down begins at home.

2a. Re $9-million co-op on Fifth Avenue, plus $26-million renovations and furnishings. At a time when people are fleeing New York in droves and eroding its tax base, is it wrong for others to register a strong yes vote for the city by making a HOME there? Yes, the apartment needed work. Most 1920s-era apartments do. We were happy to be able to PROVIDE EMPLOYMENT for so many talented UNION craftsmen. Also French and other craftsmen, many of them BILINGUAL.

2b. Imported art and furnishings, including $1.7-million pair of Louis XVI commodes, $825,000 pair of Louis XVI planters, $1.21-million Louis XIV carpet. Also $30k worth of dried topiary for the Aspen lodge. Yes, we have spent a lot of money. The whole POINT OF THE PROJECT was to insure worthy GIFTS when we DONATE BOTH THESE RESIDENCES to New York City and Fort Worth as HOMELESS SHELTERS. Sid and I had been planning to announce the GIFTS upon completion of the work, but
W
, by RUSHING INTO PRINT, has imputed to us less selfless motives. (Obviously, you will want to discuss this approach beforehand with Mr. Bass, but you could emerge as the modern Eleanor Roosevelt—minus the frumpy frocks. Important: remain vague as to the precise timing of the gift.)

—
The New Yorker
, 1992

Want to Buy
a Dead Díctator?

With its ruined economy fast approaching crisis point, and a severe winter food shortage looming, the Russian government is being forced to undertake some very drastic measures in an attempt to bring in desperately needed hard currency. Last summer, cosmonauts aboard the Soviet space station
Mir
, circling 240 miles above the earth, were reduced to earning money for the ailing national space effort by sipping Coca-Cola in an experiment for the company.

Last April, the Soviet Interior Ministry was tasked with coming up with a list of patrimonial items, such as icons, Fabergé eggs, and other treasures that the government could sell off. The Deputy Minister, Mr. Viktor Komplectov, first proposed selling Lenin’s remains last April, pointing to the enormous profits earned by the British government when it sold London Bridge to an Arizona developer in 1962. At the time, according to one source at the Ministry, the proposal was considered “sacrilegious,” but after last August’s coup attempt by Communist hard-liners, the citizenry reacted with vengeance against all vestiges of bolshevism. The government announced that it was considering burying Lenin beside his mother in his Russian hometown of Ulyanovsk. It reconsidered that
proposal when, according to a high-ranking Ministry official, “a significant number of threats were received stating that the body would be dug up and indecent things done upon it.” At that point, the Ministry decided that it might be safer to remove the corpse from the country. Mr. Komplectov’s proposal was thus unshelved and submitted for study in a new light. Russian President Boris Yeltsin is said to have given his final approval in late October, in the wake of the tumultuous summer upheaval.

In an attempt to save the significant commission that an auction house such as Christie’s or Sotheby’s would charge—as well as to discourage an extraordinary, and to the Russians, unseemly, public spectacle—the Ministry has decided to hold a closed, sealed bid auction. Bids must be received by the Ministry no later than midnight (Moscow time) on December 31st of this year. The reserve is set at $15 million, U.S. The winning bidder will be contacted within three days.

A condition of the sale is that the Lenin corpse not be used for any “commercial, or improper” purpose, the deed of purchase to be administered by the International Court of Justice at The Hague, in the Netherlands, making the conditions of sale enforceable by that international legal community.

Description: Mr. Lenin’s body was embalmed at his death in 1924, and stored in a sealed, climate-controlled glass casket. (Shades of Sleeping Beauty!) It has been periodically re-embalmed. Every five to ten years the skin, somewhat yellowish but by no means jaundiced-looking, requires a special application of preservative, or “waxing.” Under the terms of sale, maintenance is to be provided only by qualified Russian mortuary specialists from the Interior Ministry, expenses to be paid for by the purchaser. (Estimated annual upkeep: $10,000-$ 15,000; varies with climate.)

Obviously, the Lenin corpse is not for everyone. But as a conversation piece, it would certainly have no equal. You might have some explaining to do to the lady of the home, but the item is fairly compact and could be accommodated to fit in most large dens.

Bids should be addressed to: