I know I’m not usually quick to admit a mistake but I really feel as if I owe you all an apology for my behavior at last week’s pitch meeting. U-571 2: U-572 was not a good idea, I realize that now, and the belligerent and violent way I continued to defend it was inappropriate. I had been in an accident the previous night — the “B” from a Barnes & Noble sign fell on my head when I was leaving the store — and as we all realize now, I was clearly suffering from a severe concussion.

Mark, you were the first one I turned on. You started snickering when I explained the new U-571 would be about a “hot-ass speedboat that dishes out its own brand of nautical justice” and I was out of line when I started slapping the top of your head as if it were a drum in retaliation. As musically sound as the rhythm I got from your head may have been, and I’ve been told by others in the room that the beat was reminiscent of Face Value-era Phil Collins, there’s just no excuse I can give that could ever justify my actions. You were right: not only is making a sequel to an obscure submarine movie an awful idea, inexplicably changing the water vessel in question from a sub to a speedboat is mindbogglingly stupid.

Judy…oh Judy, to you I’m not sure what I can do to make up for what I said. Let me simply address every one of those ridiculous remarks I made directly:

1. Your brake lines haven’t been cut.
2. I’m not really going to give you a cake with dynamite candles for your birthday.
3. It wouldn’t be physically possible for me to actually drop a volcano onto your house.
4. There’s no such demon as Hazmalak, and even if there was, I wouldn’t know how to summon him.
5. You don’t smell like Rowdy Roddy Piper after a wrestling match.

Rick: all I can say is that those clothes are never going to be clean again so burn them. IMMEDIATELY. Then you must seal those ashes in a metal canister and bury them as deep into sanctified ground as humanly possible. After that, all we can do is pray that they’re never discovered.

And Walter, you’re the one I owe the biggest apology to. You were the only one who listened patiently as I ranted and raved about a speedboat becoming sentient and opening a detective agency and yet I still hoisted you up from your chair and flung you through the window of that 17th floor office. It wasn’t so wrong that it was right like I later stated to the police when arrested, it was just plain wrong. If and when you wake up from your coma I hope we can look back at this incident and laugh, unless the sense of humor part of your brain really has been permanently damaged like the neurologist has implied it was.

So that’s it, all my cards are on the table and now I can only sit here and let time heal all the wounds that I have opened. I’m a changed man from this experience — I am far humbler and I no longer walk under excessively large store signs — and I hope you all can accept the new me and we can work together once again. I’ve recently started kicking around the idea for a little movie called Dockin’ It!: Amistad 2 and who knows, maybe someday you’ll allow me back onto your hollowed grounds to pitch it.