Dear [name of client],
This is the worst part of being an investment manager. I can’t stand having to send this letter to investors.
As we discussed last year at the beginning of our business relationship, investment is risk. That is to say, markets are constantly fluctuating; the economy is often volatile in times of war; I tend to drink; stocks and commodities are not fixed-value assets; larger firms are constantly affecting the market share and value of an independent fund like ours; a sex worker is involved in my benders; because of an understood inherent risk, investments are not underwritten or insured by the FDIC; a recessive economy has affected certain markets that we both agreed to invest aggressively in; I have a cocaine habit; and, overall, now more than ever, there are no “secrets” to generating wealth, just cold, hard truths.
Where do I begin? This time last year, you and I speculated that I would make millions on your behalf. Looking to invest several hundred thousand dollars of your own money, you had met with a number of small firms and had decided on mine. I was, and still am, deeply honored. But guess what? I had just met someone, too—a woman by the name of Krystal who would turn my world upside down; the kind of woman who literally became sexually aroused when I talked about my secrets for generating wealth. She moved into my home in the beginning of the third quarter, and from there it got real strange real fast.
Do you know what it’s like to be in love with someone special?
Well, now imagine that the “someone special” is a high-class sex worker with a leather fetish and a direct connection to some of the best cocaine making its way into the United States. Yes, the downright odd and highly eroticized sex was flowing like wine, the wine was flowing like money, and the money was flowing like, well, money. It was going out and not coming in, and I was staying out and not getting to the office for days on end.
Let’s, just for a minute, quit worrying about how I was supposed to make you millions. Stop and think what it’s like for me at this impasse. The woman I thought I loved has left me. Not only am I addicted to a drug I can no longer afford but, by dating (and almost marrying) a leather freak who had a direct connection to a kingpin, I cut out the dealer altogether and am now not only hooked but accustomed to an uncut purity that would kill 10 men with the combined constitutions of Keith Richards and General Patton. The only people who have ever tasted coke this pure are South American presidents and now-psychotic/suicidal tribesmen chewing cocoa leaves until their gums bleed in huts made of dung up in the Andes Mountains.
Christ, it’s gone, all of it. I’m as broke as you or worse—I would imagine you’ve at least got something to fall back on in the way of lower-risk endeavors like mutual funds and certificates of deposit, the kind of namby-pamby, pussy-whipped investments I used to thumb my nose at. Seriously, a year ago I would’ve told you to grow some balls if you stunk up a portfolio with that kind of fear-based bullshit. But things have changed, to say the least.
I’m going to be up front with you: I’m in need of a short-term loan. Relax, Captain Sensible, I’m not talking about a million dollars. I’m talking about whatever you can swing—just enough to keep the walls from closing in on me, so I can get shit straight in my head. Look, here’s something I never told you: there are other secrets to generating wealth, and I’m ready to start using them. I only tried, say, half of the secrets I know, mostly because, frankly, I didn’t think I’d need all of them. Well, you learn something new every day.
I come to you a humbled man. A man with at least 11 more hours with a painful, poorly timed pharmaceutically induced erection. I’m typing to you in a leather oxygen mask that was padlocked to my head before she left with another man. I’m typing in a $12,000-a-month apartment (don’t ask) littered with latex gloves, spent smelling salts, huge prosthetic penises, and my hair, which was shaved from my head while I was gagged with socks and electrical tape in my own bed. I’ve called a locksmith. If there’s enough clearance for bolt cutters to get between the back of my head and the padlock on this mask, I should be able to suit up and leave the apartment tomorrow to get started on turning things around for the future. I’ve got one hell of a plan, and I hope you’ll be part of it.
In closing, [name of client], I look forward to a long and productive relationship managing your funds in high-yield investments. It’s a relationship that I don’t take lightly. As my grandfather said, “Wall Street is a place you are trusted to be, and being there should never be mistaken as a birthright. It is the privilege of the hardest-working men.” It is with that same sense of hard-earned privilege that I look forward to executing and managing your investments (if loan is possible).
Thank you,
Dan Kennedy