The Good the Spam and the Ugly: Shooting It Out with Internet Bad Guys

Most of the internet-using public has by now received at least one unsolicited e-mail from someone in Africa (or elsewhere), offering a too-good-to-be-true, get-rich-quick scheme. According to author and retired attorney Graham (Eat What you Want and Die Like a Man), the stupidity of Americans has turned Lagos, Nigeria into ""an upscale suburb full of spam mansions."" Turning the tables, Graham replies to these malicious e-mailers with invented aliases and crazy stories that only a hapless, gullible schemer would believe: signing his emails with names like Barney Rubble, Graham tells his correspondents that he wants to ""sell chia pets in erotic shapes"" and ""open Nevada's first drive-thru brothel for seniors."" It's a funny premise-after all, it served three volumes of Ted Nancy's Letters from a Nut well enough-but Graham's humor often falls flat, and the back-and-forth e-mails quickly blend together. Amid juvenile, occasionally scatological humor, Graham provides middling comic anecdotes about himself and his family (such as his cousin, bit by a mongoose). At times, he's gleefully offensive, as in an unfunny commentary about midgets, taking on the persona of Adolph Hitler and describing one spammer as ""not the brightest candle on the Kwanzaa menorah."" While the idea of messing with spammers might entice, Graham's approach isn't for everyone.