pauljoyce.ca

Introducing www.spamhooks.com

Just took the wraps of a new site for wordgeeks...and those who love to laugh at spam. Zip on over to www.spamhooks.com and enjoy a gallery of marvelously incomprehensible spam subject lines. There's something uniquely creative about the twisted metaphors and complex puns used to hook eyeballs by cunning spammers.

Of course, this is business too. Over 40% of Internet traffic is estimated to be spam, and a 2003 TELUS report guesstimated that even though typical response rates are around .005%, it doesn't take many 'customers' to make the whole enterprise very, very profitable.

Spam is nothing more than a firehose of direct mail, and the subject line is the headline on the envelope. While plenty are computer generated, every so often out pops a truly wellcrafted zinger. Many are just the literary equivalent of a car crash.

To mis-quote Tom Waits, spamhooks: "are a form of copywriting....just not for everyone." Yes, the site is safe for work browsing - Spamhooks of the transparently crude variety are best left unremarked. Enjoy the site, and check back for updates. Also, feel free to submit your own stumbled-upon spamhooks via the big red 'Submit' button.

The Shawarma of Bonnie Tyler

There’s a humble little shawarma shop in my neighbourhood. The food is terrific, served hot, fresh and fast. It’s run by a (literally) young Turk who mans the front kitchen. Shawarmas get made up front on the grill, falafels in the rear kitchen’s deep fryer. He’s short and unibrowed, the epitome of swarthy, and in all of 25 visits, has smiled exactly once. Which is why he has sensibly employed someone to help with the customer service side of the business. That someone is a rotating pool of what can only be described as Very Hot Russian Chicks™. They never last more than a week, and are immediately replaced by another tall, bottleblond, Wonderbra-curvy and riotously overdressed PYT. Think sequins. In a shawarma shop. Hmmm. They pose defiantly behind the cash register, chewing gum and scowling delightfully as their boss angrily hacks chicken from the rotisserie and shovels it into a hummused pita. But that’s not the half of it. When I said it’s a humble shawarma shop, I only meant in size. There’s a well-stocked bar, lots of varnished dark wood, comfy tables, and a 46” plasma screen on the wall. This screen is used exclusively for music videos. Mostly of Bonnie Tyler. Yes, Bonnie’s back. The same big-haired husky-voiced Scottish lass of the 80s is right there in hazy stretched widescreen faux-HD. ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’, ‘Have You Ever Seen The Rain’, ‘Holding Out for a Hero’, ‘Here She Comes’...and you thought she only had one hit? My little shawarma shop begs to differ. Thankfully the audio is always off. Finally, although open most nights until 9pm, the kitchen is always, always, always out of shawarma by 5:30. You could set your clock by the grim shake of the head the boss will throw at you. What would Bonnie think? I think she’d be outta there ‘Faster Than The Speed Of Night’.