Tuesday, June 27, 2006
NOverheard
Now, it can be told:
I wasn’t going to participate. I’d been sending in trial submissions for their little contests for weeks, and never received so much as an “honorable mention.” I never heard squat, actually. And if you’ve ever heard squat, well, not hearing it is a very lonely feeling in the ol’ earhole.
I didn’t need the rejection. I had plenty of it already. If I wanted someone to tell me I was a loser, I could just ask someone on the bus. We’re good at providing that sort of social confirmation for each other. But I didn’t want that, either, so I kept my fool mouth shut. And then when I got home I checked my email and I found:
“I’m writing to you because you’re one of the best headline writers for our Headline Contest; we have a complicated algorithm where we’ve ranked and rated the thousands of headlines per contest we’ve received, and yours have been in the top handful. […] This is why I’m writing to you. As one of our best headline writers, I want to personally invite you to apply for the job of headline writer.”
Cool, huh? I didn’t go out looking for rejection – it went trolling for me, in the sultry guise of potential fame and fortune. It’s a shopworn disguise but it fooled me well enough. In a palpitation of excitement, I sent in a handful of sample headlines. Then, I waited – but not for very long, because soon enough (if not sooner), I got this email:
“Dear finalist, Thanks for applying [ ]. We’ve spent the past couple of days reading everyone’s headlines and letters. [ ] Most of them were shockingly good. Even so, some were so shockingly good that we put them into what became a very small pile of Outstandings. Then we took the best of the Outstandings and put them into an even smaller pile of People Who We Can’t Live Without, and so forth, and the best of those into To Die For, until after all the dust had settled, we ended up with you and a few others of your ilk. So if you’re reading this, congratulations. Pat yourself on the back. You are Officially Funny. We are in awe of you.”
This email went on to explain how the final round of this application process was to be conducted. Then I got another email from another staffer, making sure I got the first email. They didn’t want me to miss the boat. I, an inveterate boat-misser, appreciated the concern. I generated a tasty sample, submitted it fresh and steaming from the murky spigots of my brainpan, and sat back, waiting for the media junkets and propositions from wealthy dowagers to start rolling in.
I was still waiting a week later. It seemed unlikely by that point that I’d be hearing anything from anybody, ever – much less so, anything relating to this contest. I’d been plucked from the anonymous crowd by the finger of fate for a Dirty Sanchez of my own devising, and I could now wear it at my leisure. I gave up. I’m sensible that way. That is to say, in the way of the loser.
But then yesterday, I learned in yet another email:
“[S]orry it’s taken us so long to get back to you. we’re mostly done with picking the new batch of editors and headline writers, and unfortunately, you didn’t get the gig this time around…. what we ended up doing is picking out a few specialist-type writers [ ] and rounding it out with a couple of general humor types. so if you didn’t get the job, it’s probably because you’re just too well-rounded. or something.”
(Ah yes, the curse of roundness. How it rankles! But the email did go on….)
”we’ll be posting a “Best of” the applications pretty soon, because there were so many amazingly funny headlines…. And [ ] if you live in new york, send me an email, and i’ll put you on the list; we’ll have an unofficial beach launch party / happy hour some time during the first two weeks of july.”
Whoo-hoo! Beach party! Happy hour! 3000 miles away! This is exactly how alcohol takes away the sting of critical scourges. That is to say, by drinking it at a happy hour. Hearing about it and staying sober is more like pouring alcohol directly into open self-inflicted wounds – clarifying, in a sort of blinding-flash-of-pain way. I will be missing any party that is thrown for those who defeated me, and not even by choice. I will join them in my own way, however, by cutting the faces out of US magazine pictorials, drawing disrespectfully upon them, soaking them in Everclear, and, finally, igniting them on the tabletop with blue-tip matches. Oh, bitterness… we have so much catching up to do.
But then, shortly thereafter, I got one more email – the last, I imagine, that I’ll be getting in this little correspondence:
“hope you got the previous email. so, sorry you didn’t get the gig. i have to say, though, you were one of my superduper top favorites. so we’d love to work with you. at the very least we will be having guest headline writers, one a week, just for fun, once we get the kinks out of the software. so i will be in touch about that if you’re interested (seriously).”
For seriously? Sure dude, bring it on. If a deskjockey in Fran’s Damn Disco can be making fun of overheard whatnot in New York, I’m the deskjockey to do it. Thanks, Overheard sites, for considering me a worthy candidate, for keeping me in the running till I ran out of steam on those last 12 blurbs, and for salving my wounds with these words that are no less kind for being difficult for me to believe. But, regardless of my belief structure, I would be happy to take another stab at being a headliner. I’ve spent 40-odd years (some odder than others) being a byline, and it’s raising some disturbing issues for me. So here’s my offer: You give me the line, and I’ll give you the head. Of course, this offer is open to negotiation. I regret that I have only one head to give, or words to that effect.
But I’ll tell you – now that I’ve had a brush with potential cybercelebrity, I can’t stop thinking of headlines for pretty much everything I see and hear. I hope they contact me soon because that’ll be the only way to stop the funny little voices - and frankly, they’re starting to make me nervous.
