December 27, 2002
Today is the day to do it until there's a law against it.
Well, I received a Worst New Year's Eve Ever story so unbelievable that I don't know if you can top it. It's by Ben Brown, so you know what that means (it's Ben Browntastic.) I bet you can try, though. Readers, you have until Saturday night (yes, Saturday night) to send me your most horrific, disappointing or bizarre stories of your Worst New Year's Eve ever. Got it?
Today, though, I plug for a friend who has been very good to Zulkey.com, and Zulkey in general. Not that he needs plugging. Nathan Rabin, ladies and gentlemen, here to talk about the fabulous new book, The Tenacity of the Cockroach: Conversation With Entertainment's Most Enduring Outsiders, by the Onion AV Club.
Guest Zulkey.com Diarist/Plugger: Nathan Rabin
First off, I would like to thank my dear friend Claire for
lending me undoubtedly the most respected public forum of the great web of
pornography known as the internet. For, as I'm sure you all know, it was at
Zulkey.com that Trent Lott told America he felt segregation was "da bomb",
Michael Jordan declared he was abandoning his dream of becoming a
professional jockey and a young Paul McCartney announced to a stunned world
that he was, in fact, dead, and had been for quite a while.
What is the cause of my appearance here today? Is it blatant
self-promotion or some more covert form of self aggrandizement? Well, I'm
glad you asked,
although I wish you weren't so cynical about my motives. I come before you
today to shill shamelessly for The
Tenacity Of The Cockroach, a compilation of interviews conducted by The
Onion A.V Club. It is, I think I can say without a hint of false modesty,
not only the greatest book ever written, but also the pre-eminent accomplishment
of Western Civilization (take that, Sopranos!).
After all, where but in The Tenacity of the Cockroach are you going to find exchanges like the following?
O: That's something you weren't doing earlier?
Russ Meyer: Not so much, but now I like it. But I can still whack away with
my joint.
Where else, pray tell, are you going to read about a scary, demented old
man's penis? Many porn sites, I imagine, but those are notoriously lacking
in literary value (unlike
Tenacity of The Cockroach, which received
a B+ in Entertainment Weekly and a
rave from Booklist) and contrary to their claims, hot and horny
Asian teen gangbang
action.
O.K, so maybe you're not convinced yet. That's why I am sweetening the deal
with an offer that I believe is unprecedented in the history of Western literature.
My offer, quite simply, is this: buy The Tenacity Of The Cockroach and
I will be your friend forever. Would that jackass William Styron make you
that kind of an offer? Hell no. The minute you turn your back on that guy
and he's drinking your cognac, wearing your silk monogrammed robe and balling
your old lady by the fire. Now granted, I'm a busy man, and
probably won't have time to hang out watching soap operas and eating Bon Bons,
but I will make some sort of minimal effort to maintain at least a superficial
bond with you at
least some of the time. My friendship is not available in stores or over the
telephone. So act today. Of course, you
can't put a price on friendship, but if you could, it'd probably be in the
twenty to twenty five dollar range. So, simply buy the book and forward
a cyber-receipt to me with the subject heading "I, (Enter Name Here)
would like very much to be your friend, Nathan Rabin, and have purchased a
copy of The Tenacity of the Cockroach.
Now at this point, you might be asking yourself "doesn't this cynical
stunt demean and cheapen the very idea of friendship?" Yes, but let's
be honest: despite what some Bette
Midler movies might suggest, friendship kind of sucks. Always has, always
will.
So act today. Supplies are limited by the ever-shrinking size of my cold,
black heart. (Note: offer not legally binding. Stalking strongly discouraged)
Yours in potential cyber-friendship,
Nathan Rabin