The employment pages
As a recent college graduate wading knee-deep in a hostile job market, I think I've developed an involuntary tic every time I hear the word "experience."
Of course, hearing the phrase "35 years of experience" repeated ad nauseum over the course of the endless Democratic primary didn't help any.
Sen. Dennis Miller (R-CA)? A-ha-ha! [brushes hair back]
In a positively illuminating
interview with Politico.com, Dennis Miller reveals that the ex-next Republican president, George "I call dark-skinned people monkeys and I'm ashamed that my mom's Jewish but I'm not a racist, I swear" Allen, once tried to tap him as Sen. Barbara Boxer's Republican challenger:
George Allen called me once when he was in charge of Senate procurement something or other and wanted me to run against Barbara Boxer. I remembered when I was in grade school there was always one kid who, two minutes before the end of class when no homework had been assigned, would always raise their hand and remind the teacher. That kid always bugged me. And when I look at Capitol Hill, I see 535 of those kids. I have no interest in joining them.
Yes, Dennis. Clearly it's your disdain for the partisan atmosphere on Capitol Hill that kept you away, not the fact that you'd be creamed six ways to sunday. Although I'm sure C-SPAN viewers would've been enthralled by Dennis Miller's speeches in the hallowed halls of the Senate, which I imagine would've been something along the lines of, "This bill is so Kafkaesque, it makes the Hawley-Smoot tariff look like a late 90's Mallard Fillmore on quaaludes. A-ha-ha! [brushes hair back]"
Okay, I've got one: "Paris Hilton shouts racist epithets after her arrest for plotting to rob a bank but before spontaneously combusting"
I posted recently about an oddly creative spam subject line: "Tom Cruise killed in plane crash." Since then, I've been getting a number of spam emails along the same lines:
"Kelsey Grammer in hospital after heart attack"
" 'I won't raise taxes,' says Schwarzenegger, 'except for The Indians.' "
"Three children jailed for armed holdup."
There was another one involving Britney Spears hiding a gun in a part of her anatomy in order to shoot at paparazzi, which is most likely impossible but would nonetheless be a minor miracle if it were true.
Of course, none of these are true, and none of the spam contents have anything to do with them, but to me, the most remarkable thing about them is that they're not the standard incoherent wordspam or male-enhancement sales pitch like most spam. In other words, oddly enough, it's somebody's job to come up with these! It reminds me of George Carlin's old routine about the guy who has to go to work and think up places to suggest using plastic vomit-- "Hey Phil, I got another one-- near the refrigerator!" Except today, the advanced technology of email dictates that spammers invent unique, creative ways of famous people saying or doing something eye-catchingly inflammatory. The future truly is here, isn't it?
I almost kinda want that job, because it involves an element of creativity that lucrative-but-sleazy Internet businesses generally lack. At a certain point, though, you would probably start to fall into formulas-- "Random celebrity hospitalized/killed", "Prominent politician says something horribly racist," "Tabloid star goes postal in a manner that somehow involves their genitalia"... and once you rely on a cliche as tired as
that, you know you've lost your touch.
