Klout

      

“So I told those asshole agents I sent my new novel to,” he said, “my Klout score, that new app where they measure web traffic and rank your influence alone should justify publication. I mean, do you know who I am?”

 

“Yeah. OK. Good luck with who you are. Who you are is a drinker of cheap beer who came up a little short on your toilet training.”

 

“That was not, and I say not, a righteous collar. I was only tucking in my shirt.”

 

“Right, while you peed on that little old ladies begonias.”

 

“How was I supposed to know they belonged to a little old lady?”

 

“She was holding them for god's sake. How much do you need to know?”

 

“Yeah, well anyway, Kim Kardashian is my friend. That's big.”

 

“You look at her you twit. She doesn't look at you. There's a difference.”

“What difference? My Klout score is all the way up at 40.”

 

“40 is nowhere you idiot. The Aflac Duck is at 47 and he has a one-word vocabulary.”

 

“Well, if I get rejected I'll let it get around who did it to me and there'll be hell to pay.”

 

“Right. The only guy who might know you is J. Craig Venter. At 39 he's down with you and he created a goddamn synthetic human genome. Maybe he'll whip up a genome for you that'll get you and your banjo down off the porch and into a literacy program. But probably not. He has more on his mind than the author of a mid-market book on Weird Religions of the South Bronx.”

 

“Hey. Turning a blind eye to my work will cost them. I have another book in the oven that will make Harry Potter look like the Dead Sea Scrolls. It's going to be huge.”

 

“The only thing you have in the oven is with that Spangolini woman over on 47th Street.  Judging from her, whatever emerges will be huge. I'm booking a cruise during the due date so I don't get splattered.  When the world gets a look at that piece of work your Klout score will go up to 99. You'll be up there with Justin Bieber and the other fruitcakes busy shaping our world. Somebody's going to want the rights to that story, you can bet your ass.”

 

“Hey! Fuck you!”

 

“Right. Likewise. You're getting right up there where you have the Klout of that guy on 84th Street who posts pictures of pigeons sexing it up on his window air conditioner. I'll be looking forward to reading your book.”