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Monday, November 14, 2005

Harmon Leon Tonight!

Posted by on November 14 at 12:41 PM

Harmon Leon is reading from his new novel Republican Like Me: Infiltrating Red-State, White-Ass and Blue-Suit America tonight at Elliot Bay Book Co. at 5:30.

I’ve not read his books (he also wrote The Harmon Chronicles), but he contributes pretty regularly to the San Francisco Weekly. His schtick seems to be anectodal humor essays. Here’s an excerpt from a recent piece he did for the SFweekly, about applying for jobs with fake resumes as Willis Drummond-Willis (from Diff’rent Strokes).

There’s a line saying “Have You Ever Been Convicted of a Felony?” In parentheses it says “(This Will Not Affect Your Application).” I check the box marked “Yes.” The phone rings. It’s Virginia. She apologizes profusely. “I’m sorry. I forgot we had an interview.” What?! I need to be interviewed NOW! Right now, for one of the shittiest jobs known to humanity. “We just hired a guy yesterday, but why don’t you put your résumé and application in my box, I’ll take a look at it, and give you a call next week if the guy doesn’t work out.” Disgruntled by having the interviewer not show up for the interview, I scribble in the line asking to explain my felony charge: “Violent murder. Fucker was eyeballing my bitch!” I could have been a little more subtle. I hand my résumé and application to the receptionist and leave. Epilogue: A few days later, I get a message on my answering machine. “Willis, this is Veronica from the Save Energy Company. Could you give me a call? I wanted to talk to you to see if you still need work or if you found a job yet.”