U Sexy Mother Nature

Dear Editor:

Good idea about sexying the magazine up, in terms of sexyness. I agree that this environmental stuff needs to be more "now" -- just this a.m., my 15-year-old daughter saw me recycling a few back issues of Recycling and said, "You're a pathetic little man and you don't even know what emo music is," before climbing into her boyfriend's Mustang (miles per gallon: 14!) and speeding off. (That thing he does with his eyebrow aside, I think Brad respects me. He called me "wack" just last week. Still it wouldn't hurt to tweak our image a smidge, if only to give those Audubon Society wonks a run for their money!)

Our "product" is the planet -- not that sexy. Look at the more successful outlets: MTV doesn't lure its demographic with spotted owls, does it? What if rejiggered a little for 2002, to the tune of, say, boy bands? The way I see it, you catch more flies with hot beats and sizzlin' celebs. Anywize, I jotted down some ideas below for our new strategy. (Make that our new *wack* strategy!)

1. X-vironmentalizm. It's crazy and wild!! We don't hug trees -- we rock them! And no more "Save the Whales." From now on, we "Save the Extreme Whales," or we save nothing.



2. I'm thinking the whole protesting thing is yesterday. Too corduroy. Let's brainshower some more jammin' alternatives. Rather than monitoring CO2 levels, we could, for example, listen to the new J. Lo album?



3. I tried calling Britney's people again. Their number's still unlisted. But according to their website, they're not currently looking for an opening eco-act. Nevertheless, I've got some steps worked out, so it'll be on the back-burner.



4. That report about those elephants getting killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo -- I don't know, it meandered. No, "meandered" isn't the right word. More like I don't care about elephants. They're big, but not extreme. And if they're a sinking ship, let's think about finding a life raft. Maybe P. Diddy?



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MC Flipper.
5. Along those lines, let's think about tinkering with all of our underperforming species. It's simple branding: Not so much dolphins as hip hop dolphins, and so forth.



6. Re. Upping the ante -- I picked out a media-friendly tree for my take on the Julia Butterfly thing. I'm almost totally comfortable with the nakedness at this point, though my physician voiced some concern about fire ants. This is going to pick up where she left off (nudity-wise).



7. I like the environmental gossip column plan and already have some calls out. Right off the bat, I can tell you that Sue Berman, that receptionist at Greenpeace, was seen with a tall, hunky law student -- but not the same law student she was with at the Tree Toad convention! And this is still unsourced, but I have a hunch our favorite PETA intern is going to ask her *third* roommate to move out (remember the soy milk incident?).



8. Those dance steps that I mentioned -- do you want to see them some time? Actually never mind. You probably wouldn't be interested. Do you think you'd be interested?




Sparkly earth sticker. So shiny.
9. Let's look at our product line -- this is a revenue-generating way of distributing our message, and it's putting people to sleep. Instead of bumper stickers, for instance, what about sparkly stickers? Young people have proven, time and again, that they like shiny things. Let's be the people that have the shiny things.



10. Reality TV is hotter than ever no matter what the critics say. So far these programs have been about people, which is fine, but nobody's touched flora and fauna yet. Think about it: Ten fungi enter, one fungus leaves. I'm pretty sure the "Survivor" title is copyrighted, but I know a guy who knows a guy at the Patent office who can get us "Perseverer." Interested? What about in those dance moves?