Literary Agent Representation v. The Joker


You get promised to be adequately represented by a literary agent for as long as you want, BUT, that agent is Heath Ledger’s “Joker”. You have to meet with him in person quarterly, you can’t just communicate with him by phone or e-mail. Do you do it?
— Mikey
Literary Agent v The Joker PCV.jpg

I have to say, this is one of the most confusing hypothetical questions in recent memory.  I'm not even sure whether it's Heath Ledger who is my agent or the fictional character of the Joker, as created by the acting of Heath Ledger.  I'm going to assume the latter, and from there I can kind of answer it.

I'm going to go with yes.  Here's the thing, though I don't know exactly what adequate representation would look like, I assume the use of the word adequate rules out a lot of the worst case scenarios as having the Joker as a literary agent.  For example, he can't kill me and still reasonably be considered an adequate agent.  Similarly, he can't get captured by Batman and locked up in Arkham and also fulfill his role as an adequate literary agent.  Also if he were to say, blow up a shitload of people and go on urban killing sprees, I doubt he'd be able to fulfill his duties as a literary agent, meeting publishers, making book deals on my behalf, negotiating contracts - that kind of thing.  If he's become so notorious as to warrant widespread panic as is his proclaimed directive, then he's going to fail me as his client.

So, in the world where the Joker is an acceptable literary agent, with knowledge of the publishing industry and the capability to read and fight for my fiction, all I'd have to endure would be a number of really bizarre meetings where one of the guys at the table was dressed as a clown, asking people if they know how he got his scars, and threatening to make our pencils disappear.

It might make firing him for a better agent a little risky though...

Repetitive Rap v. Sleeve Tearing


Would you rather listen to Game Over by Lil Flip once a week for twenty years or rip the sleeves off every shirt you own?
— Mikey

This one is actually pretty easy.  I listened to the song; it's your standard rap fare of bragging about wealth while vaguely dancing near partially dressed women.  If I had to listen to it once a week for twenty years, I'd come to hate it more than just about any other rap song, but that's kind of besides the point.  Let's just call it time wasted.  The song runs about three minutes, or a 180 seconds, and that time would essentially be completely wasted every time I listened to it.  Over twenty years that's 187,200 seconds wasted or 52 hours wasted.  If you value my time at $15 / hour, that's a cost of $780.  I just went through my closet.  I'd be disappointed at the loss of the sleeves of about ten of my favorite shirts, including a few new work shirts, but mostly, I need cooler clothes.  I'd guess the sum value of all my shirts is a hair higher than $800, and it'd certainly be more to replace them, but the investment itself would be worth something since so much of my wardrobe is faded shit t-shirts I've had for fifteen years.  Granted there's a time cost to replacing everything too, but put at about 10 hours, I'd say it's still worth ripping the sleeves off every shirt I own and then immediately going shopping.  Kind of close though.

Golovkin v. Hashtags


Would you rather...fight Gennady Golovkin, who is 28-0 with 25 knockouts in a 3 round fight.  Or: Make sure you use hashtag in every conversation you have at least once. As in “Hi mom, how are you doing? hashtag good morning.” You have to do this for a year.
— Mikey

I admit you have me conflicted with this one.  The option I'm not considering at all is actually going a year having conversations with people where I constantly use the term hashtag.  So effectively you've given me the option of having a very dangerous but very short battle with a professional puncher, or take a vow of silence for a year.  Much as I think I could survive the Golovkin encounter, I feel the vow of silence is more me.  Plus if I needed to speak, then I could always say something like, "Take me to the hospital!  Hashtag emergency" which I would avoid as much as possible.  Should I fail to keep my vow of silence- hashtag shame.