[humorix] We Need A Geek Telethon! [long]

[James Baughn <jbaughn@ldd.net>]

We Need A Geek Telethon!
Jon Splatz, Humorix Pundit and Social Commentator
September 8, 1999

I had the strangest dream last night.  Usually I dream
about being assimilated by the Microsoft Borg, but last
night was different. I dreamt of a Geek Telethon
broadcasted on network TV to raise money for geek
interests.  After giving this idea some thought, it
actually seems half-way reasonable: every other
disadvantaged group has a telethon. Why not geeks?

My dream went something like this:

----

ANNOUNCER: Liiivvveee from Silicon Valley... it's the first
annual Geek Grok telethon, featuring such geek stars as
Eric S. Raymond, Linus Torvalds, Alan Cox, and Larry Wall!
For the next 24 hours, we'll be raising money for America's
beleaguered geek community.  Annnndddd noooooooooowww....
the hosts of this year's telethon, Mr. Eric "Bazaar"
Raymond and Larry "Postmodern" Wall!

ESR: Welcome, everybody!  You might be wondering why this
network has pre-empted amateur women's golf to bring you
this telethon.  Indeed, you might be wondering just what a
geek is, and why they are a disadvantaged group worthy of a
24 hour telethon.  In this zeroth hour of our broadcast, we
hope to answer these questions and -- of course -- get
those phones ringing!

LW: To make a contribution, you can call (877)-YES-GEEK,
send email to pledges at geekthon dot org, or visit our
secure website at aitch-tee-tee-pee colon slash slash
double-u double-u double-u dot geekthon dot org. Behind me
is our Geek Pledge Board; it currently shows zero, but by
the end of today we hope it's at $1E6 or more!

ESR: Before we get underway, I'd like to introduce Eric
Jones, a disadvantaged member of the geek community who has
been forced to live in a homeless shelter. Eric?  Come on
out here and tell us about yourself...

JONES: Well, I'm a consultant for a Bay Area corporation. 
Due to the housing crisis, I've been forced to sleep in a
shelter.

ESR: How much do you make?

JONES: Over $100,000 a year.

LW: Wow!  And you still can't afford housing or rent?

JONES: That's right.  Prices are through the roof around
here, and  with my salary I can't even afford a treehouse
or outhouse.  I'm forced to live in a run-down homeless
shelter along with other homeless geeks and executives.  

ESR: That sounds terrible, Eric.

JONES: It is, Eric.  It really is.

ESR: Hopefully with this telethon we'll be able to raise
money to fund new shelters for disadvantaged geeks like
Eric here.  We also have plans for a Silicon Valley
Terraforming Initiative in which several square miles of
Pacific Ocean will be turned into usuable land for building
housing and apartments for geeks.  

LW: However, we can't do these things without your help. 
Eric and thousands of geeks and Silicon Valley denizens are
counting on _you_ to come through and help end this social
injustice.  

(Brief pause)

ESR: Do I here a phone ringing?  That must be our first
caller!  Let's go and say hello.

(Picks up the phone) Hello?  This is Eric Raymond, co-host
of the Geek Grok '99 telethon.  Do you wish to make a
pledge?

CALLER: Hell no!  I'm Bob Farrow of Gluckstadt,
Mississippi, and I think this entire telethon is a
horrible, evil joke!

ESR: (worried) What?

CALLER: Giving money to nerds with six-figure incomes?  I
can't believe my local TV affiliate is carrying this
nonsense... I can't believe I've bothered to call! 
Meanwhile, schools around here can't afford textbooks more
recent than 1960 and I'm living in a trailer with my wife
and mother-in-law...

ESR: (hangs up the phone) Sorry, but we seem to be
experiencing technical difficulties...

LW: I suppose now is a good time to bring out our musical
talent... 

(The Geek Chorus comes on stage and sings such songs as
"The Bluescreen Blues", "I've Got Two Tickets To Linux
Expo", "Geeks Can't Get No R-E-S-P-E-C-T", and "Pick On
Somebody Your Own IQ".)

LW: Let's look at the pledge board, shall we?  $500? 
That's all?  C'mon people... $500 is barely enough to
afford a shrinkwrapped box of Red Hat Linux, much less
enough to end the social injustices and hardships that
geeks face nationwide!  

ESR: This telethon isn't just about helping disenfranchised
geeks. We're also here for the betterment of mankind
through our research into finding a Cure for Windows.

Each day, millions of man-hours are wasted due to design
flaws in Microsoft Windows.  Each day, millions of dollars
are sent by business and individuals like yourself into a
huge black hole known as "Microsoft" for exorbitantly
priced software products that should be free.

But don't worry.  We've almost found a Cure for Windows. 
Geeks worldwide have toiled endlessly for the past eight
years working on a replacement operating system called
Linux.  It's almost ready.  Now we need to convince the
world to use our creation and eliminate the virus known as
Windows.

I'd like to introduce you to Linus Torvalds, the mastermind
behind Linux and the man striving to innoculate the world
against Windows.

LT: (wearing a "World domination. Fast!" T-shirt) Hello!

ESR: Tell us a little about yourself.

LT: Well, many people worship me as a god... Other than
that, I have a small job at a start-up firm called
Transmeta where we're designing a next-generation CPU
architecture that can exec... um, well, I've said too much
already.  Pesky Non-Disclosure Agreements, you know.

ESR: Linus here is going to do a little demonstration of
how his operating system compares with Windows 98.  We're
going to need some volunteers from the audience... anybody
with some experience with Windows?  Raise your hands...
okay, you, you, you, and you, c'mon on down here!

(Rob Malda, Miguel de Icaza, Tom Christensen, and Trae
McCombs, pretending not to be geeks, step forward)

LT: For the record, I've never met any of these people. 
This is not rigged.  Have you all used Windows before?

(All four nod their heads.)

LT: Good.  Tove, could you bring out those Windows boxes? 
Thank you. While she's doing that, why don't you guys
introduce yourselves.

MALDA: I work at a, um, uh, a Taco Bell restaurant in
Holland, Michigan, where I _slash_ prices and typically
don't wear pants.

ICAZA: (with Mexican accent) I'm an antiques and
collectibles dealer that specializes in garden gnomes.

TOM: I'm a, um, pearl reseller.

TRAE: I do graphic design.

LT: Okay.  You four volunteers are going to play a game
called "Crash that Box!" The first person who can cause
Windows 98 to display a fatal error message wins.  

TRAE: That sounds too easy...

(The "volunteers" sit down and start hacking.)

ESR: While these volunteers are busy crashing Windows, let
me point out that anybody who pledges over $25 will receive
a free CD-ROM with Debian Linux along with a booklet about
getting started with the system...

(At this point Malda's computer shows the Blue Screen of
Death, causing the audience to laugh hysterically)

MALDA: I didn't do anything... When the screensaver
activated, the system crashed by itself!  What do I win? 
What do I win?

ESR: Let me just reiterate that this demo was not rigged in
any way... Windows really is that fragile!

LT: That's right.  Now, this other machine here is running
Linux. Rob, could you come over here and type 'uptime' at
the prompt and hit ENTER?

ESR: Look at that!  This machine has been online
continuously for 243 days!

(Camera zoom in on the screen, and then pans to an excited
audience shouting "Ooooh!" and "Ahhhh!")

LT: (smiling) And that concludes this demonstration.

(Phones start ringing off the hook.)

ESR: Listen!  That's the sound of dozens of people donating
money to help fight injustices against the geek nation and
to help finance Linux world dominat... er, Linux world
acceptance.  Let's keep those phones ringing!

LW: Building a Cure for Windows isn't the only task that
geekdom is confronted with.  Geeks everywhere are faced
with poor working conditions and discrimination by the rest
of the population.  These injustices must be stopped... and
they can, with YOUR pledge!

ESR: That's right, Larry.  Geeks suffer discrimination,
ridicule, and bullying at school, work... well, at just
about every aspect of life. With us right now are a group
of geeks that have suffered these injustices. Meet Eric
Sloan, Eric Wiederkind, and Erik Dorfman.

LW: Eric Sloans, we'll start with you.  What kind of trauma
did you have to put up with?

SLOAN: I was the Head Geek in high school... the entire
school computer system was held together by duct tape, I
mean Perl scripts that I had written...

LW: Cool!

SLOAN: ...Anyways, as a result I was the target of the
so-called Jock Rockers, members of the football team who
thought they were all going to be NFL players.  If I had a
dollar for every wedgie I got... Oh, man.  Even the
teachers hated me... the gym teacher broke into laughter
anytime I tried to do a pull-up.

ESR: Oh, that sound horrible!  They made you do pull-ups?!?

SLOAN: Well, now that I've graduated I'm having the last
laugh.  The football captain knocked-up two girlfriends and
is now working at McDonalds, meanwhile my Internet start-up
just had its IPO and I'm a millionaire.  Oh, and the P.E.
teacher was fired after it was revealed that his high
school diploma was forged.

ESR: You still had to suffer.  I can't... I mean... this
just really, really upsets me!  Geeks suffering at the
hands of idiots... What is this world coming too?  This is
the key reason why I'm the founder of the "Geeks with Guns"
movement...

LW: Aw, geez, not again!  Could you save the GWG spiel for
later, when we're _not_ on the air?  Quickly moving on...
Eric Wiederkind, tell us about your experiences trying to
get a job.

WIEDERKIND: I was trying to switch into a different career
from computer programming.  Programming for money sucks...
you have to deal with PHBs, 16 hour days, and spending the
night in your cubicle half of the time to avoid the Commute
>From Hell.  

ESR: Poor working conditions... That's an injustice all
geeks must face.  (To the camera) Listen folks, five cents
out of every dollar you donate will go to the newly formed
Geek Guild, a labor union and trade group devoted to
improving working conditions in Cubicle Farms.  It's time
to fight back against the Suits.

Anyways, please continue, Eric...

WIEDERKIND: Well, like you say, I didn't want to deal with
that injustice anymore... I minored in Journalism of all
things, so I tried to switch into a job as an IT pundit. 
You'd think they'd welcome a geek like me with open arms,
but they didn't.

Ziff-Davis wouldn't even give me an interview.  I was "too
qualified" they said.  Apparently my technical acumen was
too much for their organization, which employs Jesse Berst
and the ilk.

It gets worse.  I tried to get an entry-level reporting job
for a local-yokel paper.  After the interview they gave me
a "skills test": I had to compose an article using
Microsoft Word 97.  Since I've never touched a Windows box,
I had no clue how to use it.  When I botched the test, the
personnel manager spouted, "Your resume said you were a
computer programmer.  Obviously you're a liar.  Get out of
my office now!"

After several more unsuccessful attempts to land jobs at
firms with obvious anti-geek prejudices, I gave up and went
back into computer programming.  I'm back in a cubicle..."

ESR: (shakes head) What a tragic story.  Geek oppression is
something that cannot be tolerated.

Alright, moving on... Erik Dorfman, what's your story?

DORFMAN: Everybody keeps blaming me for the Y2K problem,
the Melissa Virus, Windows crashes... you name it.  When
somebody finds out you're a bona fide geek, they start
bugging you about computer problems. I frequently hear
things like, "Why can't you geeks make Windows work
right?", "What kind of idiot writes a program that can't
handle the year 2000?", "Geeks are evil, all they do is
write viruses", and "The Internet is the spawn of Satan".

I'm afraid to admit I have extensive computing experience. 
When somebody asks what kind of job I have, I always lie. 
>From my experience, admitting that you're a geek is an
invitation to disaster.

LW: I know, I know.  I sometimes say that I'm the founder
of a Perl harvesting company instead of admitting that I'm
the founder of the Perl programming language.  

ESR: This is tragic.  We can't live in a world like this. 
We need _your_ donations to fight social oppression and
ignorance against geekdom...


---

The dream abruptly ended at this point when a cockroach ran
across my face, causing me to awaken.  My apartment complex
barely meets city codes, and it shows.  It's supposed to be
fumigated next week, but I figure the roaches will be back
within a month.  Hopefully sales of my newly released book,
"Business @ the Speed of Windows" will allow me to move to
a somewhat more upscale apartment.  

Nevertheless, the above transcript is a good indication of
how successful a Geek telethon could be.  Complaining about
geek oppression on Slashdot isn't going to accomplish
anything (except maybe raise your "karma" points). It's
time to take action.  

What do you think?  Write me at jonsplatz@i-want-a-website.com

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