Start a home business, get rich quick, win financial freedom! If you watch late-night TV, you've heard it all before. But what's the story behind these slick pitchmen and their dubious schemes? Enter The Salty Droid, your ornery metal guide to the corrupt underworld of scam-marketing scum. This charmingly acerbic bot (owned and operated by mild-mannered Chicago dog-lover Jason Michael Jones [inter-view, long talk + transcript]) is a valiant crusader against the vile con-men who bankrupt the elderly and the desperate with beautiful lies. Exposed so far: A shadowy "Syndicate" of frauduct-pushing personality cults polluting the media with blogspam and woo-woo talking points. Boiler rooms in the Utah desert where telemarketers farm credit from easy targets with cunning, probing scripts [PDF]. Powerful politicians bought wholesale. Believers left to die in fraudulent new-age vision quests. It's a soul-crushing beat, enough to make one feel like a regular catcher-bot in the digital rye. But somebody's got to do it -- preferably someone with plasma nunchucks and titanium skin.
posted by Rhaomi on Aug 31, 2011 - 47 comments

“No, no,” J.D. Salinger said. “Please don’t go. Please stay and have another drink. Don’t go now.” He was shaking his head... Salinger began walking, then running, alongside, still asking us to change our minds. He hit the cab—with his fist, I supposed—and the driver braked. Joe said, “Drive on!” Salinger was looking in through the window beside me. “Stop. Please come back!” He was shouting now in the quiet street. The cab moved and got through the intersection. Joe said angrily, “He’s absolutely crazy.”
posted by Scoop on Feb 7, 2011 - 51 comments

Happy birthday, Holden. Catcher in the Rye turns 50 years old today.
posted by honkzilla on Jul 16, 2001 - 31 comments

Catcher in the Rye just turned 50 and J.D. Salinger is staying true to form by doing nothing to mark the occasion. Even his publishing company is saying very little about the anniversary. I don't think it's right to stay silent about perhaps the greatest American novel of all-time. I've loved this book ever since I first read it. Hail to Holden Caufield, and Kudos to Salinger for writing the book.
posted by Bag Man on Jan 29, 2001 - 27 comments