— Nick's Guff —

I Almost Googled My Life Away

A friend of mine was in town on Friday and sadly, the Hog Pit was rented out to a sausage fest. Deprived of the Hog Pit’s ribs, which are the best kept secret in the city, we went to the White Horse. If you don’t see the pattern here, we’re a people that like disgustingly simple bars that make drinks like whiskey, beer and more whiskey their staples. A little Johnny Cash in the jukebox only helps. Anyway, we’re stuffing our faces with burgers at the White Horse which are arguably as good as the Bistro’s (yeah, call it blasphemy motherfucker, I said it!) when the topic of Google comes up. Now I love Google as much as the next fool but I’m finding more and more conversations that go somewhere along the lines of:

Bill: Have you seen Google Maps?
Ted: Yeah, it’s incredible.
Bill: Google is going to take over the world.
Ted: They’re buying pages in magazines and selling them to their advertisers too!
Bill: I nearly crapped my pants when I heard that, how innovative!

To this I say, so what? Shut yer piehole talking like that’s a bad thing. Let Google take over the world. I’m fine with that. If Google should take over the world, to me that’s not such a bad thing. (Am I getting redundant here?) At least there’d be someone in charge who I could ask questions of and they’d get me answers in milliseconds. For example, when I type “Google” into Google, I get back 817,000,000 results in just 0.11 seconds. You know what that is? That’s fucking fast. That’s faster than it takes for Radar magazine to fold a second time. That’s faster than it takes for me to get a number two at McDonald’s and that’s like light years faster than the time it takes President Bush to spell his own name without looking at the waistband of his underpants.

Now, if people who can come at me that hard and in that through a fashion take over the world, I guess I’m O.K. with it. I have to be. I had a chance to be a zero in the Google itself and I just couldn’t cut it. Back in the day (March 2005 to be exact), I interviewed with Google after Deutsch Advertising (a whole other sob story) threw me out on my Armenian ass. I was looking for work. I got an interview with Google. I remember thinking on the way up the elevator to that interview: Pro—Fun name to say. Google, Google, Google. Con—Not nearly as fun to sing as “Yahooooooooooooooo!”

Now, I’m going to embellish the interview here. From this point forth, I will speak creatively about what happened in that little conference room. The basic premise will be real because that’s how I’ve been keeping it since 1975. Bringing the funk correct. Real. That’s me. However, the dialogue will be false. All but the inner monologue. Here we go.

So I breeze past the first two interviewers. Of course I want to work at Google. Who wouldn’t? Then the person I’m supposed to impress (I assume at least) comes in. She’s the true Google. She’s about as Google as it gets. I bet she has Google Life tattooed across her belly like Tupac’s Thug Life. She’s hard, in Google terms. She introduces herself as employee number 53.

Her: I’m employee number 53, pleased to meet you.
Me: You mean that carries weight here?
Her: Tell me how you heard about Google.
Me: (What I want to say:) I woke up and just heard about the fucking thing today. Sounds wacky, a search engine named after a huge number. I mean am I the only one in the world who thinks Dogpile is the be all end all of search engines? Then this morning, I heard about this Google thing from the drunk homeless guy who sleeps on my stoop every night and who I have to step over in the morning. I figured if even this guy knows about it and he’s not even connected, it must be something so let’s check this fucking Google thing out.
Me: (What I actually say:) Well, in 8th grade I had a math teacher named Mr. Belushi who introduced me to the number googol. He was young, the type of teacher that kids actually liked and he was the all-American wrestler type. He had the type of chin I could smash a typewriter on and the typewriter is the only thing that would be worse for wear. Matthew Mcconaughey would be the lead in his life story.
Her: Go on.
Me: Anyway, so he tells us about googol and the class asks what it is and he draws it on the board. It’s a 1 with a hundred zeros after it. Big number. I mean big.
Her: And?
Me: Well, it’s apropos for Google, every time I need an answer on the Web, I go to Google since it can get me lots of answers, a googol of answers, if you will. It’s the perfect name. In fact, Mr. Belushi doesn’t work in your marketing department does he? He was ahead of his time. I can see that now.
Her: Do you want this?
Me: Yeah, sure.
HER: DO YOU WANT THIS?!?
Me: Um, yeah, yeah I want this.
HER: DO YOU FUCKING WANT THIS?!?!?!?!? DO YOU WANT THIS, YOU JELLYFISH? YOU CORNBREAD-EATING, DEAD-FISH HANDSHAKE MOTHERFUCKER?!?!?! DO YOU WANT GOOGLE?!?!?!?!?!
Me: Um, no. Not when you put it like that. This is weird.

Needless to say, they didn’t think I was cut out for the job. I still use Google though, happily. And I’m glad to know that the people that work there and are creating applications that will allow Google to take over the world… want it. They want it bad apparently. Google, it’s creepy but, boy, does it get the job done. I should offer them that tagline.

Word.