One Hand Jerking (9 page)

☞ A nationwide anti-smallpox inoculation program will have the astonishing side effect of increasing the average life span by eleven years.

☞ A chorus of 1,000 angels will appear over the Pentagon.

☞ Pope John Paul II will be miraculously cured of Parkinson's disease while conducting a special memorial mass at the World Trade Center.

☞ An attempt to clone terrorist kingpin Osama bin Laden from one of his beard hairs will be thwarted by U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

☞ Scientists working on an antidote for anthrax infections will stumble upon a cure for Alzheimer's disease.

☞ The three major television networks will announce that they will stop airing shows that glorify violence.

☞ It will be revealed that the Taliban has been kidnapping American children and selling them on the white slave market.

☞ The weather this winter will be unseasonably warm, reducing our dependence on oil from the Middle East.

But tabloid prognostication has its academic counterpart at the University of Alabama. This is the 23rd year of their traditional making of forecasts, “Educated Guesses.” Spokesperson Chris Bryant told the
Birmingham Post-Herald
, “We ask the faculty to speculate within their areas of expertise, to go out on a limb and make predictions of what will happen in the next 12 months.”

For example, last January, Donald Snow, professor of political science and an expert in military and political affairs, predicted that George W. Bush would lose his bid for re-election if the United States were to go to war against Iraq in
2003. He placed the likelihood at two to one in favor of a military strike. “If we go to war with Iraq,” he said, “it will cost George W. Bush the election in 2004. Even if the war itself goes well, the post-war will not, and that's what's going to do him in. Post-War Iraq is going to be an extraordinarily messy place that we are going to have to occupy for a long time. We will become the recruiting poster for al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.”

The previous January, Snow predicted that Osama bin Laden would be captured “in the next few months, but possibly not in Afghanistan. I think he's left the country, but eventually we will catch him. Somebody will rat on him. Someone will see him going through a village and will have dreams of sugar plums in that $25 million reward and turn him in. Islamic brotherhood is one thing, but $25 million in cold cash is another.”

That same year, Nick Stinnet, professor of marriage and family studies, predicted that there would be a mini-baby boom in June or July 2002, directly correlated with the attacks of September 11, 2001. “In times of stress and crises,” he explained, “people often draw closer to one another for comfort and consolation as an antidote to uncertainty and loneliness. And in couple relationships, that drawing closer may involve sexual activity and consequently the possibility of pregnancy. Some people regard sex as a good stress reliever.”

Robert Robicheaux, professor of retailing and director of the Hess Institute for Retailing Development, predicted the demise of the computer companies: “A midwestern United States-based entrepreneur will announce the introduction of a technology that completely makes obsolete traditional integrated computer chips. The product will enable easy and inexpensive remote Internet service via satellite transmission technology.”

And so here am I, caught somewhere between the tabloids and the academics, with a selection of my own humble predictions:

☞ The first legally sanctioned marriage of two metrosexuals will take place in Massachusetts.

☞ Michael Jackson and Kobe Bryant will be cellmates.

☞ Charles Manson will be released on parole and announce that he's looking forward to spending more time with his family.

☞ Arnold Schwarzenegger will introduce a bill that would legalize the sale and use of steroids.

☞Fidel Castro will come out for term limits.

☞ Counterfeit euros will flood the international market.

☞ Wal-Mart will move its corporate headquarters to China.

☞ The draft will be reinstated and will not exclude women, gays, lesbians, bisexuals, sado-masochists, transvestites or the transgendered.

☞ The weather will remain unpredictable.

☞ John Ashcroft will be diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and consequently change his mind about medical marijuana.

☞ Rush Limbaugh will get arrested for purchasing his painkilling pharmaceuticals in Canada.

☞ Laura Bush will overdose on Botox.

☞ Saddam Hussein will be sentenced to a lifetime of community service.

☞ Jessica Lynch will become a director.

☞ The stunt doubles for Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez will get married.

☞ The world's tallest building, to be built at the site of the World Trade Center, will be sponsored by the Target chain, whose corporate logo of a bull's-eye a few floors below the spire will be visible for miles.

☞ It will be discovered that Libya has been selling off its weapons of mass destruction to North Korea.

☞ The Patriot Act will be expanded to include thought crimes.

☞ The ACLU and PETA will combine forces to fight for the civil liberties of all animals.

☞ The use of cell phones with cameras for the instant communication of personal porn will bring about pandemic performance anxiety among masturbators.

☞ The reappearance of pubic hair will become so fashionable that bikini waxes will be outlawed.

☞ A combination penis-enlarger and erection-stimulator patch will be invented.

☞ A pill taken daily by men will transform their semen into a contraceptive device.

☞ Strom Thurmond will be tried posthumously for statutory rape.

☞ Jesse Jackson and Johnnie Cochran will compete against each other in a national poetry slam.

☞ Bottled water will be imported from Mars.

☞ There will be an epidemic of genetically engineered crops being inundated with genetically engineered crop circles.

☞ Particles of food will be embedded into dental floss for those who are too busy to eat between flossings.

☞ Dick Cheney's pacemaker will fail when he tries out the microwave oven he was given for Christmas by Rudy Giuliani.

☞ The Bill O'Reilly action figure dolls will all be recalled because they have a tendency to self-destruct.

☞ Monica Lewinsky and Paris Hilton will enter a convent and become nuns for a reality TV series.

☞ Senator Joe Lieberman will convert to Islam.

☞ God will at last be given credit for creating evolution.

☞ The Second Coming will occur, and Jesus will reveal himself as the antichrist.

☞ And finally, you will definitely not die this year.

Every one of the spam senders in this informal survey is trying—in the hope that you won't immediately press the delete key—to entice you into checking out their messages and purchasing their products. In that process, they will sometimes deliberately (but not always delliberately) misspell words in the subject lines of their spams in order to bypass any electronic filters you happen to set up.

A friend writes to me, “I just upgraded to AOL 9 which has a feature that takes out spam before it gets to you. Theoretically you submit and save a list of words you don't want in your subject line—in my case some are Viagra, Xanax, cheerleaders and mortgages—then
voila
! But, as always, the spammers are one step ahead. Now I'm getting spam for Viagara, Xannax, cheer leaders and mort.gages. I don't know why they think I'd do business with anyone whose spelling skills were so faulty, but I guess their target audience may not care.”

And from another friend: “Has anyone had a problem with blocked e-mail? I have had fully one-third of my mail blocked by my ISP that is running Norton's ‘Barracuda Spam Firewall.'
Phooey
! It blocks e-mail from friends and newsletters
but lets the porn, Viagra and ‘grow your penis pills' through. I am ticked! Anyone else all of a sudden not hearing from friends?”

Meanwhile, federal agents have arrested a man for repeatedly making death threats against employees of an Internet advertising firm. He faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted. He had mistakenly believed that the company was the source of unsolicited e-mail ads he received about penis enlargement. Well, everybody has their breaking point.

Carol Liefer observed on Comedy Central that apparently there are a lot of people who want
her
to have a bigger penis. And, on the all-female morning TV talk show,
The View
, this rhetorical question was posed: “Which is worse, a tiny little penis or a lot of violence?” As if in response, a dwarf detective on a Comedy Central promo for their movie,
Knee-High P.I.
, observed, “Sometimes the best dick is a small dick,” though you'll never see
that
in a subject line.

Anyway, here's a quaint selection of penis-enlarger subject lines:

There's the impress-a-female approach—“Women have always said: Size Matters!” . . . “No girl will give U a damn if U have little pe-nis” . . . “Hey My Girl Bought Me the Patch” . . . “She likes my new weenie” . . . “I am lookin for a big man like U! C*U*M* to me!” . . . “Wanna be big enough to shock people?” . . . “You will leave her speechless” . . . “Make her scream OHHH YEAAA!”

But men also like to impress
other
men, as in “Feal proud when your in the locker room” and “Your friends will envy you”—(guaranteed up to 4 rock hard inches).

Plus some more choices for the road: “gipzyxdtcbidvd + yeilopcecsu” . . . “Keep praying eyes away!” . . . “Monster Cocks at Discount Price” . . . “impede her ybpajh” . . . “dont worry about ur stupid little penis, ha ha” . . . “do u think u still can fuck like those who has macho dick?” . . . “Every man wishes he had a larger penis” . . . “Be a man and add a third leg” . . . “Enlarge your Manhood” . . . “Increase your penis size in one day” . . . “my hole was bored out by the reaper” . . . “Be happy when you make love!” . . . “With these pills you can shoot cum like a porn star!” . . . “Penus Enlarged in 2 Hours!”

The misleading subject line is a popular method of tricking you. “Tickets arrived” led to this message: “there is no other way to enlarge your penis.” This vague subject line—“Hey, shit happens”—and this non sequitur subject line—“Do you like oranges?”—both led to the same message: “Use this patch and it will grow i SWEAR. . .”

All right, so now the good news is that every man has a larger penis. However, the bad news is that none of them can get it
up
.

“I remember a spam,” writes a friend, “about free Viagra after a Penis Enlargement operation that would take place someplace in Nigeria just before the search for my share of several hundred million dollars that my new friend is cutting me in on. Seems his dad stashed bullion in foreign accounts to which they'd have no access until I brought several thousand dollars first. Could have gotten way rich while erect for days while I fucked myself.”

Another friend quotes a spam—“Massive rock-solid Erections, new natural product bmrgwhmsmnmb”—and adds, “I like how it turns into nonsense at the end. I kind of picture like it's a mild mannered guy at the beginning who takes the ‘natural' Viagra somewhere in the middle and then by the end he's like the incredible Hulk with a hard-on so powerful he can't even make coherent sounds. Also: ‘From Keith Moon: Re: Generic Viagra'—At least they have a sense of humor. Maybe they'll start coming from ‘Rush Limbaugh' next.”

And now for your reading pleasure, here's an erection selection:

“Stick it on you then stick it to her” (Viagra-like patch) . . . “Beef up the size of your willy” . . . “Bob Dole loves Viagra, so should you!” . . . “terrifying terpsichorean” . . . “The Assay Test” . . . “Men let the pillz do the talking” . . . “Is it time to upgrade your system?” . . . “You will be a sex machine”—(erectile dysfunction) . . . “condolence maverick expedition” . . . “Goodbye to Soft Equipment” . . . “Are you hard at work?”

“You blocked my ICQ” . . . “ur di.cky is so smalllll” . . . “Enh..anc,e_yo*ur RO . . . D” . . . “G*et a ,*B-UL^;K,Y ‘PO*L;E” . . . “Incr*eas^e :D”IC^-K :LENGTH' easil'y” . . . “B^oost y-our c'onf 'ide;nc,e” . . . “,T:h_e na_tio*na:l i;nfrast*ru:ctu re i:s fal:li^ng.”

“Stay hard for 72 hours”—
Editor's note
: Viagra ads in magazines state, “You should call a doctor immediately if you ever have an erection that lasts more than 4 hours. If not treated right away, permanent damage to your penis could occur.”

This vague subject line—“Hi”—led to this message: “Sometimes people call it ‘Magic Lubricant.' Sometimes ‘Power Bottle.' Why? An amazing erection WITHIN SEVERAL SECONDS is guaranteed to you! Double-strengthed orgasm and full satisfaction.”

Both “Can I Make It Up to You?” and “One Last Question” are spam subject lines for this message: “Did you know you could discreetly order Viagra over the Internet? You don't have to go through all the problems of getting it in a local pharmacy store or explaining your problems to the doctor.” And then there was this charming misleader: “Enlarge your Bank Account 2-3 inches in days.”

Okay, so now all these horny men have gigantic penises and also the medical means to help them defy gravity and become oh so erect, but there's simply nobody around with whom to share these huge hard-ons. That's where Internet porn—a $10 billion industry—comes to the rescue.