10:01:09 PM

About a year ago I was talkin' to this guy and he says "Oh, you're on the internet? Hey, you know a guy named madamamama?" (don't recall the name).

"Whaaa?" I replied, squinting.

"Yeah, a friend of mine, he's on the internet. He's real big there!"

"'Big'? Waddaya mean he's 'big?' Nobody's big on the internet."

This guy, let's call him Dave (since I think that might really have been his name) is way into this, he says

"No, really, this guy's big time, I can't believe you never heard of him."

"Nobody's ever heard of anybody on the internet, man, what the hell are you talkin' about?"

"Well he's always goin' off about how big he is on the internet."

"Oh, well that sounds more like it."

"Huh?"

"What does he do that makes him big?"

I thought he might say that his friend "gets ops on IRC."

"Oh, well he was showin' me what he does there. He's got this internet account, and he, he, he like posts messages."

"He posts messages?"

"Yeah, to those, those, uh, whatisit . . . Newsnet?"

"This guy's tellin' you he's a bigshot because he posts messages to usenet?"

"Yeah, man, he was showin' some of it to me!"

"What was he showin' you?"

"Idunno, but he's like got this internet account and like posts to usenet, and..."

"What makes him 'big on the internet?'"

"Man, he posts a *LOT*!! I'm tellin' you, he's bigtime on there."

Now he's waving his hand at my computer, sensing that I may have been a little unimpressed.

"Well, what about you, do *you* post messages?"

"Yeah! Any asshole can posts messages."

"Well, he's not just any . . . uh, well . . ."

"Here," I said as I handed him my keyboard, "post a message."

"What?"

"Post a goddam message!"

"Nah, I'm not gonna.." he moved back a few steps when I handed the keyboard over to him, reacting the way I've seen people react when you put them in front of a microphone.

A day or two later this same guy was in my office again, asking me how he could get on the internet. Before I had time to respond he asked "Now you have Panix, right?"

"Yeah."

"Can't you just gimme a copy of Panix?"

"Well not exactly." I started to explain the details of getting an e-mail address and connecting to the Internet and all that, and he instantly became impatient, expecting of his connection to the internet the things elderly dilletantes expect of classical music ("I want it sound good to me when I'm in the bubble-bath").

Well, I don't know if that guy ever get on-line or not, but a couple of weeks later he quit the company to go work for a fancy-schmancy clothing/perfume company. Before he left I stopped in to say goodbye, and was flabbergasted to learn that at his next job he was going to be in charge of "establishing an on-line presence and maintaining a compelling marketing initiative" for his new company. For some reason I've always remembered those exact words.

He was positively strident about the subject, talking so hard and so fast that there was nothing, I mean NOTHING I could say to make him stop.

At the end of the conversation he bade me well, and out of his briefcase (I swear I'm not making any of this up) he produced a copy of "How to Make Money on the Internet," by Canter & Siegel. He clutched this book and pressed it to his forehead with a grin, saying something like "It's all in here, Mark."

Later that afternoon I thought: "It sure is." I've never even opened their book, but now any time I see it or think about Canter & Siegel, I just think "It's all in there."