One of the more perverse joys of writing a blog is to randomly check the spam filter, looking for any lovely reader comments that may have gotten accidentally caught in the gunk. Kind of like cleaning out a verbal shower drain. What is surprising (to me) is the real-time evolution of healthcare spam, and how weirdly evocative it can be. When the Doc Gurley site first went up, we got targeted by Looking for Hot Gay Men? ads, Viagra ads (who doesn’t?), and ads for Penile and Breast Enlargement (both? who’s that conflicted?) as well as pitches from Car Insurance sellers. My mind reels with the image of millions of omni-sexual hot rodders zooming across America with a strange bureaucratic need to be fully covered for any mishap.
So where do you evolve from there?
Well, over a few months, we’ve morphed through ads for health insurance, gambling, all types of prescription meds, meet your soulmate sites, and faux-comments from people whose names have a distinct lack of vowels (Mr. Prwstdcrp feels strongly about many Doc Gurley posts). Now, in a new, sophisticated development, we get near-sentences from near-sources that try very hard to be actual comments. And nearly make it.
So, in honor of the quirky joys of spam surfing, here’s a poem by me, using some of this week’s healthcare spam phrases.
machine on mystical slot
for the treatment of wise attacks
randomized, ambiguous-dazzle, placebo-lead
to the ponder drug –
fancy be convenient us bloody hale
the fateful protrusion of a variety of silken tissues.
Accost the undeveloped chance
of hasty hearing downfall
a compassionate protein.
Bequeath be cast-off,
co-come to light
as happily as Provera(R).
Got a Spam Ode of your own? Some other way of viewing a negative as a positive? Post it in our comments section below. Happy week!