The Crazies That Walk Among Us

Years ago George Carlin once commented on how many raving loonies were walking around in society. He said, and I quote, “There are an awful lot of people walking around – not all there! And I don’t mean the helpless or the homeless. I don’t mean people who have been kicked out without their medications and stuff. I’m talking about fuckers with jobs!“.

(I’d pardon my language, but I’m quoting The Man, and there’s something deeply sacrilegious about apologizing for George Carlin’s use of language. I just can’t bring myself to dishonor a dead man that way.)

That line comes to my mind a lot in my work. I’m basically a technical marketer who specializes in written communications; another way of looking at it is that I’m a technical writer who sells stuff. I write websites, brochures, white papers, you name it, mainly for high tech or industrial manufacturers on a per-project basis. These are not crazies: they’re engineers and/or successful businesspeople. Which is why I continue to be perplexed, mostly amused, sometimes irritated by the number of Carlin’s “fuckers with jobs” who contact me.

Usually they’re independent business owners, people who quit their job to start a business at their kitchen table. These guys can usually be identified by their lack of budget, lack of discipline, and completely asinine excuse for a business plan. My favorite one of those to date was the former prostitute – this was back in ’05 – who wanted to market instructional DVDs to teach young women how to success in “the business”. I kid you not; that’s an actual example of the kind of people who find me. (Up until a few years ago I actually made an effort to follow up with these guys, figuring, you never know. Stopped doing that after the gig with the meditation CD idiot who insisted that we claim on his website that his mediation programs cured cancer.)

But without a question, beyond a doubt, hands down the absolute, positively most bizarre nutjobs are – BY FAR – the folks searching for ghostwriters. I “ghostwrite” technical materials. Maybe a magazine article here and there. But I do show up on Google as a “ghostwriter”, which means I get every manner of lonely unmedicated misanthrope desperate to get their story out. Mostly they’re wannabe novelists. Once, a couple years ago, I once got several calls from a woman who wanted me to help her write a children’s book about her childhood rape.

Lately it’s been Jerome. This summer I’ve gotten several voice mails from Jerome; he lives over on the Space Coast of Florida. He’s been trying to enlist me to help him write his IMPORTANT new age book. Like Deepak Chopra but more IMPORTANT. Can’t stress enough to me how IMPORTANT this treatise is. He’s called me a total of three times now, the latest one yesterday, and each time the calls get weirder.

Yesterday he dropped the new age book altogether and spent his full voice mail time stressing to me that he is a storyteller. A STORYTELLER. Like, a STORYTELLER, for reals. He must have used the word “storyteller” fifteen times. Now he wants to write a crime drama, desperately impressing upon me his need for help to get the story born from his natural-storyteller chest and out into the world.

Sigh. They’re everywhere. And they’re all working on books. I’ve decided to start saving these things for posterity.

But if you want to read about the all time winner, the number one raving looney that beats all these guys, click through the jump. You’ll love this guy.

Still with me? Great. This guy was beautiful. Apparently still is.

His name is Eddie Verdon. He sent me a service inquiry back in early 2005, wanting my help in writing his book. The subject? How the Anheuser Busch corporation was systematically destroying his life and attempting to kill him. It was this long ranting screed that just left me speechless; the level of paranoid batshit insanity crammed into a couple thousand words took my breath away. And gave me a headache.

Anyway, I mention Eddie from time to time to friends (I’d long forgotten his name), and recently I was asked to go find that email. It had to be buried in my archives somewhere – I rarely delete anything – and I mentally filed it as something to do later on. Well, with this latest voice mail from Jerome, I was finally inspired to make the file-digging effort. I managed to locate his rant in an ancient email stack, and was set to start cutting and pasting, when it occurred to me to Google Eddie. I figured, who knows. Maybe he’ll turn up somewhere.

Allow me to offer up a tiny morsel of deranged whimsy for your curious perusal:

My family and I took a trip in 1998, a fleet of cars followed by a Budweiser truck were blocking a passing vehicle, turning both lanes into a one way highway. I swerved off the side of the road avoiding a head on collision. I’m not sure if that was a freak coincidence or a warning..
[…]
That two lane highway, that I was driving on lead to a government facility they were government cars followed by a Budweiser truck. My, gut feeling is they were working together to create an accident for us. My family and I being the accident. With all these coincidences and relationships established. I therefore, have no way to come to any other conclusion. This statement will stay in my story.

It’s long. It’s insane. And, it turns out, Eddie’s been plastering it word for word all over the Internet. (Which is why I feel free to offer up his full name here. He’s pretty far out of the closet at this point.) So if you want to read the whole thing for yourself, nearly verbatim from what he sent me in 2005, check out the Dirty Corporate Feet Conspiracy.

And people wonder why my tolerance for weird and crazy is so low.