by Julia Scott
Hey Dicks:
Vegas. May 10-12. Don’t be a pussy.
John
I waited for Lisa to go to lunch then sat down at her computer, logged in, and responded to John’s email in equally profane language. When I was done, I scrolled up to the recipient box and typed in the word “all,” intending to reply all to my brother and our friends.
What I didn’t realize is that I had forgotten to put the word “reply” before “all.” This meant my lewd response didn’t go to my brother and our friends; instead, it went to all—literally, all, as in everyone in Lisa’s address book.
All 502 people.
. . . to Lisa’s parents, her grandparents, her boyfriend, his parents, to Kimpton Group’s national sales staff, to Kimpton’s clients, to their clients. To the president of the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
And there was no sign that the vulgar message I had written was sent from me. It contained only Lisa’s email address, and her signature.
A few minutes later, when the first of the 502 contacts opened their inboxes and clicked on the email sent from Lisa Cowen, Art Director at the Kimpton Group—this is the message that greeted them:
Dear Butthole:
Listen, this job doesn’t pay me enough to buy shaving cream. Perhaps I can whore myself and work up the scratch to make the party. I’ll try that tonight and let you know.
Fuck You
That’s the message that awaited Lisa’s boss, Kimpton Group’s sixty-one-year-old conservative Republican president, when he got back from lunch.
Unaware of what I had done, I logged off the computer, grabbed my bag, went to a doctor’s appointment, then went home.
Meanwhile, Lisa’s inbox exploded with responses. One of the first people to respond to her—or rather, my—nasty note was her childhood priest. He wrote:
Lisa:
Are you OK?—Please call me.—I’m very worried.
There were angry and confused messages from the vice president of sales, from the regional managers and hotel union representatives. They all thought this was Lisa’s coup d’état—that she was quitting, and sending out a final farewell fuck-you to the world.
There were voicemails too, from parents and concerned relatives. Lisa’s grandmother was particularly distraught at being addressed as a butthole.
Lisa returned from lunch and quickly figured out what had happened, what I had done. She sprinted around the office and tried to delete the email from as many empty computers as she could. To the rest of the recipients, she sent an apology, explaining that there had been a mix-up. For many, however, her apologetic note just made her seem even more insane. The damage had been done.
I got home that night and noticed there was a message on my answering machine. It was Lisa. She was short of breath, half crying, half laughing, all chokes and chuckles and sobs.
“NESTOR!” she cried. “You are so fucking dead.” Then she explained the situation. I suddenly realized that within two months, I had sabotaged the first real job I had ever had in my life.
I returned to the Kimpton Group office the next day and prepared to pack up my stuff and hit the streets. Lisa showed up a little later.
“You know, you’re an idiot,” she said, walking over to my side of the cubicle. “I know,” I said. She told me that although she was tempted, she didn’t rat me out. Nobody knew the email came from me. She took the hit and so I was safe.
I handed her a 40-ouncer of Olde English in a brown paper bag that I had picked up on the way to work, trying to make light of the awful situation.
Lisa exhaled, grabbed the 40, and said, “Don’t you ever mention this again.” Then she turned around, walked back to her computer, logged on to her email, and changed the password.
NEAL POLLACK
TAKE A CHANCE ON ME
NEAL POLLACK is the author of eight books of fiction and nonfiction, including the bestselling parenting memoir Alternadad, the cult satirical classic The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature, and the novels Jewball, Downward-Facing Death, and Open Your Heart. He has contributed to eight million magazines, newspapers, and websites. A flat-track roller derby announcer, certified yoga instructor, graduate of the Jaguar High-Performance Driving Academy, and three-time Jeopardy! champion, Pollack lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife and son.
When I was fresh out of journalism school, I was actually a pretty good writer, or at least a competent one. Maybe there were some diary entries here and there that would make the future me blush. I seem to remember one from 1990 where I wrote, “I am becoming increasingly influenced by the comedic stylings of Saturday Night Live.” But for the most part, my J-school background bled me of artistic pretension. For years, I wrote nothing worse than boring summaries of district water-board hearings.
I reserved my stupidest, purplest prose for my job applications. In those days, I believed that no career height was beyond my achievement. Even though I had, at best, an average collection of clips, I continually applied to Rolling Stone, and Esquire, and Spy, and GQ, and Vanity Fair, and any other magazine that I could find at the barbershop. I oversang my praises and sent them stupid little humor pieces. I humiliated myself, even if I was the only one who ever read the letters.
Below, you’ll find two egregious examples, which I wrote in 1992. The originals no longer exist because I sent them away and because the computer I wrote them on is slowly decaying in a landfill somewhere. Let them be a warning to young careerists everywhere: this is what you sound like.
—N.P.
In 1992, I wrote a “job application” letter to Tina Brown, who was the editor of the New Yorker at the time.
Dear Ms. Brown,
I’ll cut to the quick. I would like to work for the New Yorker. And I imagine with the big change-over, you may need lots of editorial help. So I’m throwing my hat into the ring, and asking you to consider hiring me as an editorial assistant for your new project.
I’ve been precociously reading the New Yorker for some time now. And I am a devotee of the current magazine, as well as of its historical heritage. Most of the writers I respect most, living and dead, have written for your magazine at some time. I’m willing to cut my journalistic and literary teeth elsewhere, if I can’t get a job at the New Yorker, but I’m determined not to end up anywhere else.
The resume I’ve enclosed doesn’t indicate this, but I’ve been working as a freelance writer since graduating two months ago. I’ve been doing pretty well, but I’m still waiting for the big score. Maybe you could help. I strongly encourage you to take a chance on me, but if I don’t suit your needs at this time, thank you for reviewing my application. I look forward to hearing from you.
I also wrote a letter to Strobe Talbott, who was at the time an editor at Time magazine and later became a deputy secretary of state under Bill Clinton. He was starting a new magazine that I don’t believe ever happened.
Dear Mr. Talbott,
I’m a damn good editor. I’m young and gutsy, as a marine in combat. My terse, tough prose style would make Raymond Chandler weep. Somewhere, somehow, the grapevine told me that you’re starting a magazine called Globe Review. Said vine also let me know that the staff will be small, which means you’re not hiring too many people. Being the low man on the totem pole is fine with me.
Your magazine sounds original, smart, and progressive, sophisticated but not shallow. Of course, I’m just guessing. Can you go global without me? I think so. Should you? I think not. Or at least I hope not. I’ll do good work as an assistant editor, copy editor, or researcher. I’ll be in New York City from November 11 through 17. If you’d like to interview me, you can contact me at the Chicago address on my resume until then. Thank you for reviewing my application. And I look forward to seeing the magazine, whether I am part of it or not.
DANIEL CLOWES
PROFESSOR EATANOFF
(AND HIS GUIDE
BOOK OF PROPER PROCEDURE FOR FLESHEATERS)
DANIEL CLOWES is the acclaimed cartoonist of the seminal comic book series Eightball, and the graphic novels Ghost World, David Boring, Ice Haven, Wilson, Mister Wonderful, and The Death-Ray, as well as the subject of the monograph The Art of Daniel Clowes: Modern Cartoonist, published in conjunction with a major retrospective at the Oakland Museum of California. He is an Oscar-nominated screenwriter; the recipient of numerous awards, including the PEN Award for literature, Eisner, Harvey, and Ignatz; and a frequent cover artist for the New Yorker. He is married and lives in Oakland, California.
I wish I could just write this off as mere juvenilia, but I was actually twenty-three years old when I created this tasteful gem, a year shy of my first professional work. I did this strip, along with several others of equal merit (Doctor Motherfucker, I Married a Human Worm) with the intent of selling them to National Lampoon magazine, or possibly even the New Yorker (!), imagining in my youthful delusion that America was secretly clamoring for passive-aggressive adolescent cannibal humor. I actually put this page in my illustration portfolio, which would probably explain why I never got a single assignment.
—D.C.
DAVID MUNRO
CLICK HERE!
WHAT I DID FOR MONEY
DAVID MUNRO is an award-winning filmmaker based in San Francisco. His latest project is Stand Up Planet, a documentary about young, outspoken international comedians sparking social change through humor. Munro’s first feature, Full Grown Men, won the 2007 Sundance Channel Undiscovered Gems Award. Prior to filmmaking, Munro wrote shamefully lucrative advertisements.
The mid-nineties were a heady time for me. That’s when I fell in love with filmmaking and at the same time fell out of love with my career that up to that point had paid me very well, which was to write advertisements. So I quit my day job and entered film school. I had become so militantly disillusioned with consumer culture as part of my transformation that I actually wrote in my film school application that ads were “pornography.” Which is not only ironic, but, as you’ll see very shortly, prophetic.
It was around the time that I started making my first short film that I realized that making movies is hella expensive. At the time, I was working split shifts as a cabdriver and a hotel desk clerk. I got a call from a friend offering me a freelance copywriting job. He said this job would pay me $1,000 a day. Of course, my mind exploded with all the gaffer’s tape and film stock that I could buy for $1,000 a day. Here’s how he pitched me the job:
“Bro, I’ve got good news and better news. The good news is, this job is going to pay us a shit-ton of money. The better news is, it’s for a porn site.”
This was a dilemma. But I was desperate. The client was GameLink.com, and they were the world’s first online porn superstore.
Without further ado, here are the interactive web banners that I wrote for the Walmart of sleaze.
—D.M.
AD #1
Very classy. My apologies if you’re a lefty.
AD #2
The film that this paid for went to Sundance, by the way.
AD #3
AD #4
Some of these were better than others.
AD #5
That one didn’t run. Even they passed on that one.
And finally, this is the only one I’m proud of:
AD #6
MARIE C. BACA
D.A.R.E. TO SAY “NO” TO MARIJUANA
Baca with a rat on her head.
MARIE C. BACA is a San Francisco Bay Area−based writer. Her nonfiction is primarily about people on the fringes of society: morgue workers, day laborers, Bigfoot hunters, cockfighting enthusiasts, UFO trackers, and the wrongfully convicted. She’s investigated the proliferation of toxic waste sites in poor communities and the effects of fracking on rural populations. Recently, she’s begun writing humor, personal essays, and fiction. Her work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, ProPublica, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and Salon, among other publications. Baca holds a bachelor’s degree in human biology and a master’s degree in journalism from Stanford University. Visit her at MarieCBaca.com.
If, like me, you went to an American public school in the ’80s and ’90s, you probably encountered the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program, which taught students how to “just say ‘NO’” to drugs. While the program’s goals may have been admirable, the execution was often ludicrous: in my elementary school in San Diego, for example, reading time was often cut short to learn about Schedule III narcotics (we were ten). I guess it’s no surprise then that I won the fifth-grade D.A.R.E. skit-writing competition with a piece that made Reefer Madness look like Shakespeare.
Fortunately, this literary gem was performed in front of the entire school. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to use props that looked like real drugs, nor did we know what real drugs looked like. So we pretended to smoke rolls of gift wrap and hoped for the best. I’d like to apologize to my classmates for the misinformation we presented that day, although I will say that if you smoke a three-foot joint, hallucinations of twins will be the least of your problems.
—M.B.
[MARIE and JULIA stand next to each other looking bored. Suddenly, JULIA notices the two gift wrap tube “joints” in front of her.]
JULIA: Hey, look what I found!
MARIE: What is that?
JULIA: It’s marijuana or weed. If you smoke it, you will relax.
MARIE: Is it illegal?
JULIA: Yes.
MARIE: I don’t want to get in trouble.
JULIA: Come on, don’t be a loser! You loser! Just smoke it!
MARIE: I don’t know . . .
[Enter the MYSTERIOUS TWINS, holding a sign that says “POOF” as well as a giant remote control. Everything they say is in unison, because they are twins. Also, they are dressed the same.]
MYSTERIOUS TWINS: Poof!
JULIA: Who are you?
MYSTERIOUS TWINS: We are the two Mysterious Twins! We’ve come here to show you what will happen in the future if you do drugs. Fast-forward! [They click the giant remote.]
[JULIA and MARIE spin around wildly to indicate the passage of time.]
MYSTERIOUS TWINS: [Hold up sign that says “The Future.”] This is the future!
[JULIA and MARIE pick up the joints and “smoke” them.]
MARIE: Whoa.
JULIA: This is a good blunt.
MARIE: I am stoned.
MYSTERIOUS TWINS: Marijuana is a very dangerous drug! It can cause short-term memory loss and anxiety and is very addictive!
JULIA: I don’t feel good.
[JULIA and MARIE begin coughing. They fall to the ground dramatically. They are dead.]
MYSTERIOUS TWINS: [They press the giant remote.] Rewind!
[JULIA and MARIE get up and spin around wildly again.]
MYSTERIOUS TWINS: [Hold up sign that says “Today.”] It is today, again.
JULIA: Wow, thanks Mysterious Twins!
MARIE: Thanks for showing us the future!
JULIA: Yeah, now we know about the dangers of drugs.
MARIE: I don’t want to die.
JULIA: Let’s just say “no” to marijuana.
MARIE: Okay!
FIN
CHARLES YU
TRENDING NOW
CHARLES YU is the author of three books, including some that have actually been liked by people, unlike the piece he contributed to Drivel, which is apparently impossible for anyone to like. He regrets a lot of things he has said and done, but despite the title of this collection, he doesn’t necessarily regret having written a bad thing, or lots of bad things. It’s just part of writing, you know? Everyone has bad stuff. Except Karen Russell. She’s a robot. A fiction-writing robot genius. Someone get he
r.
Looking at this again almost gave me a seizure. I’m not sure what I was thinking, but apparently I was in some state of fractured, hyperstimulated consciousness where I was incapable of writing a sentence longer than four or five words. That’d be bad enough as an experience for a reader, but the truth is I actually wrote this for a reading series, to be performed by an actor onstage. I was unofficially commissioned to write it, and I did, and I sent it in, and then I never heard back. Literally, not one word. I’m not sure how it’s possible, but I think the reading series may have actually ended because my submission was so bad. As with almost anything, it’s not absolutely or irretrievably bad all the way down to a molecular level. I mean, if you squint hard, and are in the right frame of mind (that is, you have had more than six cans of Red Bull), you can imagine a time and place and state of inebriation in which this could, with much more work, precision, nuance, and wit, have turned into something halfway decent. Or maybe you can’t.
And it gets a little worse—I was thirty-six when I wrote this. Not sixteen, or twenty-six. In the grand scale of my life, I basically wrote this yesterday. If you think, when you get past a certain point, that you can never write something truly abysmal, well, this piece right here suggests otherwise.