Petesophizing...

Some years ago I landed close to the bottom of the employment ladder. I suppose professional chicken grabbers, those guys who corner and snatch up chickens eight at a time to transport them for slaughter, have it worse, but not much. I wasn't just a telemarketer, but a telemarketer on "the cop call", the nightly shakedown across the country in the name of police and veterans groups of questionable legitimacy.

Even though the job led improbably to becoming the phone room manager at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater, I've tried to forget the cop call. But it looks from my notebook like I attempted to make the best of talking to thousands of Americans and it looks like I started taking notes for an essay with the working title: "What Telemarketers Know About America".

From "What Telemarketers Know About America":

Americans use their children to screen their phone calls. In New York, Kansas, and Michigan, little children have become a front line of defense against the kind of call I'm making. As young as 2, 3, 4, they're power-lifting telephone receivers, stopping for one last coaching session from mom and dad, and screaming WHO IS THIS?

Here's a peek into the phoneroom:

After a few weeks I decided to ask the phone room manager, Mark, who was already fond of me -- and fond of my results -- the question so many people on the other end of the lines ask me: "What percentage of this money actually goes to the officers?" With seventeen or so years in the business, he was ready for me. "I was badly abused as a child," he said. This was his verbatim, direct response. Then he handed me a brochure for the prepaid legal services he was hawking on the side.

But here's something I kind of like:

I'm talking to Lara on behalf of the Kansas Peace Officers when I have a realization and I break from the script. "You were born in 1966 or '67, weren't you", I said. "You have that information?," she asked. "Doctor Zhivago came out in 1965", I said, "your parents loved Doctor Zhivago, didn't they." "Clever boy," she said. Suddenly sexuality. I'm not totally gone.

According to the Social Security Administration's (SSA) Popular Baby Names, in 1965, the year Doctor Zhivago was released, Lara isn't in the top 1000 names at all, (though "Fonda" -- used as a first name -- ranks 885th).

In 1966 Lara makes a stunning debut at 618th.

In 1967 Lara jumps all the way to 277th.

1968: 227
1969: 224
1970: 235
1971: 273
1972: 297

So Lara peaked in 1969.

In 2002 the BBC reprised Doctor Zhivago as a miniseries and in 2003 it played in America on Masterpiece Theatre, with Keira Knightley in the role of Lara, the role Julie Christie beamed into the minds of American parents-to-be.

(The real letdown in the miniseries was Sam Neill standing in for Rod Steiger, but that's not to discredit Neill, who I usually like, but just because Rod Steiger was unstoppable. The way Steiger's Victor Komarovsky intones, not "Lara", but "Larissa", would fry any database.)

In 2003 Lara ranked 730th according to the SSA.

In 2004, 733rd.

Score one for Julie Christie.

Although in 2005 "Keira" ranks 232nd.