‘Brett Guthrie’ commented on our Robert Hilburn vs Bill O’Reilly item:

Back in 1978 Hilburn gave a glowing review to Gerry Rafferty’s “City to City” album. He called Rafferty “McCartneyesque” and since I was way into McCartney, I bought the album. What a downer that piece of vinyl was.

Guthrie probably thought no more of his complaint, but he did not take into account the power of Google’s adbots. They ruthlessly absorbed his comment into the collective mind and started spitting out this ad on Independent Sources:

That ad has since been seen by thousands of people. Now, like a butterfly flapping its wings causing a storm half a world away, Guthrie’s throwaway comment has had real consequences.

“Right Down The Line: The Best of Gerry Rafferty” has risen to #11,255 on Amazon’s music bestsellers list — with a bullet. While no “The Very Best of England Dan and John Ford Coley” (#886, with “Nights Are Forever Without You” and “I’d Really Love to See You Tonight”), he’s moved ahead of “Best of the Dream Weaver” by Gary Wright. Talk of a Broadway show a la “Abba: The Musical” is in the air. An iPod commercial is rumored. Rafferty is cited as an inspiration for the nascent singer-songwriter revival (”Old Wave”), which has led to discussions for a reality show tentatively titled “Search for David Soul.” All in 24 hours.

So Guthrie has created a world in which his nightmares become reality; in which “Right Down the Line” is played hourly on every “The Jack” format station in North America. If only he had thought before he typed. We leave him with this haiku:

What were you thinking;
by seventy-eight, “like Paul”
was no compliment

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 12th, 2005 at 3:00 am by A Senior Administration Official and is filed under Blogging, Funny ... to us. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.