'Snark or Schmobvs?'

Tuesday, February 10, 2004  

On one side of the coin is "Uncle Grambo" -- Mark Graham. He's the human face of web phenomenon Whatevs.org and primary propagator of what fellow blogger Daniel Radosh once referred to as the "goofy patois" now sweeping the nation. Graham chronicles pop culture with a verve and insouciance that makes his obsessive interest in under-aged starlets like Amanda Bynes almost charming.

The other side of the coin is Neal Pollack. He's the self-obsessed author of The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature and Never Mind the Pollacks, bandleader of The Neal Pollack Invasion, and retired blogger. Some say that he is today's most undiluted voice of cultural and political satire. Others call him a hatchetman.

In what many thought would be the first shot in an open war between two of the blogosphere's behemoths, Pollack parodied Grambo's widely read Grammy coverage in Salon. Lou Dobbs Tonight host Lou Dobbs sat down with the pair to discuss the parody, their relationship, the state of the internet, and the continued exporting of American jobs to foreign labor markets.

LD: Mr. Pollack, you're a professional writer with two novels and a number of record albums to your credit. What made you decide to target an amateur, Mr. Graham and Whatevs.org?

NP: I was utterly unaware of Uncle Grambo, Whatevs, so-called "blogs," and the internet until yesterday. You see, I've remained cloistered in my palatial walled estate in the misty hills high above the greater Seattle sprawl since the publication of my latest important work, Never Mind the Pollacks. Only my manservant, Thaddeus, stays with me there, dutifully applying oinments and unguents when medically necessary and passionately employing oils when emotionally required.

MG: hott!

NP: Please. As I was saying, I heard my manservant, Thaddeus, coughing out a sound alarmingly similar to laughter. I investigated and found it to be laughter, indeed. I immediately thrashed him with a switch, of course, and ordered him aside. There, in among piles of empassioned pleas from publishers for another important work for the Pollack oevre, I laid eyes upon Whatevs. I found his writing to be little more than an abuse of the tools of my art, and I was compelled to wield my sharpest sword -- satire.

LD: Mr. Graham, how do you respond to those that say your writing is childish, at best, and corrosive to the English language, at worst.

MG: i'd say bring the haterade... you can't extinguish the buzz even if you dump it on me super bowl stizz...

LD: So you're not personally offended by these attacks, or by Pollack's piece?

MG: neal's piece? hott! it's got as much buzz as keitel's piece, circa "The Piano." obvs.

LD: Mr. Pollack, there are those that have said your parody is motivated by jeaously on the part of Dave Eggers and his McSweeney's cabal, and that you're little more than an attack dog let off the leash.

NP: There is only one response to such an accusation. For it, you'd have to speak with Mr. Eggers.

LD: So you don't deny it.

NP: Comments of that type are clearly aimed at dissembling America's coalition of the willing, in which I am a joyful and patriotic participant. You see that kind of snark in the comments of former weapons inspector David Kay, when he says that there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and you read it in the pages of that instrument of the communist camarilla, The New York Times, when it says my latest important work, Never Mind the Pollacks, is a "blown opportunity."

LD: An average of more than 1,000 American jobs are exported daily to foreign countries, the citizenry of which is usually brown in color.

NP: I've injected Robitussin into my urethra, and now I'll wait for beautiful dreams of a ménage a trois in a Cambodian hothouse with Buddy Guy and Cloris Leachman.

MG: schmears.

Lou Dobbs' interview with Neal Pollack and Uncle Grambo airs in its entirety tonight on CNN.

'Exporting America'
Click here for the list of companies that the "Lou Dobbs Tonight" staff has confirmed to be Exporting America.

Tonight's thoughts
"Parody is the last refuge of the frustrated writer."
Ernest Hemingway (1899 - 1961)