What's the Ugliest Part of your Body?

May 1st, 18:20, Pacific time
One hardly thinks of Good Morning America as a hotbed of slurs and slander, but they're working on it. Still pumped from suspending producer Kevin Cosgrove for racist remarks, rumor claims they played host on April 30th to one of our friends from People Magazine. Now, I haven't seen a transcript, but I'm told, by those who have a more socially standard sleep pattern than I do, that the phrase "[no] dwarves, mutants, or felons" was used when refuting assertions that People would put Hank the Angry, Drunken Dwarf, on a cover.

No felons? Kiss away your chances, Tim Allen. You too, OJ Simpson - Oh, pardon, not convicted. No mutants? No chance for Pamela Lee, either, with her unnatural assets. No dwarves? Good thing Hervè Villechaize isn't around for the Fantasy Island reunion. Let's not even get into what the exact definition of a "mutant" is in their picture heavy, word light, books.

I should rearrange my whole lifestyle just to watch morning orange juice shows. I need to see the glossy sharp folks out there wrapping their manicured mouths around the word "mutant" more often. A proverbial hail of mucus is raining down on the fine folks at People right now, and I'd like to thank all of you for making it worthwhile. Especially the ones who dumped enough sugar in my mailbox to sweeten my coffee for the next year.

Hints and allegations, you are the bread and butter of this sleazy net profession. Imagine how much more fearsome we'll all be when we're packing Wearables from MIT. Then we'll just think on record and capture all these Hallmark moments for generations to come.

What do we definitely know about the Hank situation? He's one of those specially blessed to be involved with Howard Stern. The self-crowned King of All Media has been pumping this sucker- bet contest with his traditional gentility and regard for common goodwill. Hank can usually be located in his favorite position, which is stinking drunk and incoherently pissed off in Boston.

But to hell with that, let's get down to the serious business of rampant speculation. People allegedly outright cut one contender from their poll, known only as "Flasher #6", at about 5am, Pacific time, on April 30. Flasher #6 had 6300 votes at the time, and was replaced by the lovely and talented Gillian Anderson, who had about 4700. People has as yet declined to comment on this. Anybody got a screenshot?

People also yanked the poll for an unspecified while on the night of April 30, perhaps concurrently with wiping out Madame Flasher, during which time no one was allowed to vote or view results.

People has fixed their CGI so that it either properly merges in "hank the angry drunken dwarf" with "Hank the Angry, Drunken Dwarf", or done so manually and slapped a postage stamp over it. As of 17:20, Pacific Time, May 1st, he has over 200,000 votes. Expect that number to be outdated by the time you're reading this.

Reports are that Hank was getting about a thousand votes per five minutes, Leo was getting about 4, and Flasher #6, wherever she is, was getting about a hundred. Expect those numbers to be outdated too.

Maybe the folks at Pathfinder are congenitally incapable of learning how to handle polls. Their Man of the Century poll was full of ballot-stuffing, according to ZDnet, for Kemal Attaturk, who revolutionized the entire Turkish way of being in 1923. Rumor also has it that Apple employees were doing the same for Steve Jobs.

Implications? That Pathfinder (home of Time and People) already knew that net people were wont to ballot stuff for their darlings. That they already had a poll system in place and surely knew that their CGI was not all that it could be. In other words, that they should absolutely not have been surprised when this happened. If not now, it was imminent.

One person wrote me saying, "this is the fastest growing net.meme I've ever seen" and I well believe it. When I heard about this on Tuesday night, I could find three other sites with any information about it. Now they're spanging out faster than mass media can comment. Nice to see you finally picked up on this, CNN.

Is this an important story? Yes and no. I personally don't care if they do put Hank on the cover. But professionally? You bet I do. If mass media megaliths are going to use this medium, they can damn well take the flack that comes along with it, and plan better later. Stern, thought about suing them for breach of promise? Like angry ex-fianceès do when their beloved skips town with an armload of silicone. It won't get Hank on their evil little magazine any more than it'll bring your sweetheart back, but it'll smear egg all over them thoroughly enough that they'll do their homework next time. Or in Pathfinder's case, maybe the time after that.

As Frank Zappa said, "Some say your nose, some say your toes, I think it's your mind..."

Your humble servant, Auntie