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effectiveness of display ads in tabloid newspapers
Saturday, May 31 2003
I applaud the Savage Love initiative to name a sex act "the Santorum," thereby preserving forever Rick Santorum's anti-privacy gaffe, one that hasn't apparently affected his popularity in Pennsylvania. Sometimes these days I feel like I'm living in a dark age, or perhaps a room walled with rubber. The outrages pile up like Catskill snow but where is the outrage? If this is indeed a dark age, and some future civilization will one day mine the internet archive looking for glimmers of enlightenment, it will be great for there to be a few supplemental artifacts of these times preserved in oral tradition. My vote for a sex act named "Santorum" is an orgasm produced by a person whose stimulation is entirely through anal penetration. The fact that Rick Santorum supports the tight regulation of my sexual acts while also believing it perfectly normal to force his family to fondle a fetid former foetus feels to me a little like having some unpleasant stranger insistently probing my anus with his finger, one whose nail has been allowed to grow a bit too long. "I understand and even sympathize with your desire to give me a santorum, but please, sir, I beg of you, just let me wait for my Greyhound in peace."
When I saw the smoke and dust of the collapsed first tower of the World Trade Center, even before I'd seen any cable television coverage, I intuitively knew that this was the end of freedom in America. I assumed the crackdown would descend immediately, but it happened (and continues to happen) in a rather different sort of way. It's as if the slope toward fascism has been increased by a few degrees, and everything that falls (or isn't nailed down) trends bit by bit toward the fascist extreme. And it's not just the doings of the government that have trended fascist, it's also been the media and the mooing & farting mass of the population at large. Before September 11th, I never had the feeling that the media was covering for the US Government. Now it seems like a dreary grey Soviet-style propaganda exercise. And why shouldn't it? Those with most of the control only want more, and there's an important vote coming on Monday.
I've been thinking this over, and now I'm convinced. Marriage is a sacred covenant, limited to a Gus and a Gretchen. All you other people who have been "married" are in delusion, and don't think God/Yodah/Allah/Vishnu/Yehuah hasn't taken notice. It sickens me to think that others are being "married" and diluting this sacred act with heretical pretense. To further my view on this matter, I actively support the pending constitutional amendment reading as follows:
Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a person named Gus to a person named Gretchen.
Neither this constitution or the constitution of any state, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.
I know I can count on my readers to support me in this cause. Write your congressman and demand that he or she vote in support of this essential amendment!
I'd allowed my computer repair housecall business to languish in the weeks before, during, and after the wedding. Now, though, I have no excuse for such sloth, and (following a suggestion advanced by Gretchen), I took out a display advertisement in the local tabloid weekly. It cost $164 for a four week run. The results so far, in this first week, have been far more impressive than the classified I took out back in the fall. I'm getting at least a call every day, and most of these translate into actual visits. Today I had two housecalls and made nearly enough money to pay for the entire four week ad run. If this keeps up, I'll be able to afford continuous advertisements. In truth, though, I'll probably want to slack off on the advertisements after this ad run runs its course. I don't want to work too hard in this often-frustrating trade.
The thing about computer repair is that there's an enormous demand for it. Everybody has a computer, and their operating systems are designed to grow more unreliable as time goes on. Indeed, there should be as many people fixing computers as fixing cars, but the supply of people able to fix computers is severely limited by the complexity and diversity of the requisite knowledge. There are a number of other people in this area who also fix computers, but they're hardly competition in this demand-driven environment. Indeed, almost anyone who fixes computers manages to fuck up when fixing some particular person's computer, and that person ends up crying out for alternatives. I'm sure there's a good crop of such people in this area waiting to be harvested.
Gretchen drove down to New York City to spend the next couple of days on a variety of social and poetic causes. In other Gretchen-related news, she's recently been lavishing money and other gifts on local animal shelters. These gifts must be exceptionally generous, because shelter workers have begun leaving dumbfounded messages of flabbergasted appreciation on our answering machine. My biological set-point is such that I'm normally concerned about manifestations of largesse by my significant other, but I've decided to place my faith in Gretchen's financial decisions. I don't believe she's ever been broke in her life. The closest we ever came to eating ramen was back in late January before the brownstone sold, but even then we had plenty of money to scare up (at least two untapped credit cards) should things have gotten really bad.
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