MAD DOG: Another New Career Opportunity

I need a scandal. Not because my life is so boring I need a pick-me-up more exciting than the new fall season on TV. And not because everyone else is doing it and I want to feel like one of the crowd. No, the reason I'm looking for a scandal is simple: I need the money.It used to be a scandal was bad. You were disgraced. You lost your job. You had to move out of town. And while your life was turning upside down your sole consolation was that, at least for a few moments, you had more fun than the people who were shunning you. Or so you thought. The truth is everyone else was probably having the same fun as you -- you just happened to be the poor sucker who got caught.In the good old days pregnant teenagers left town, cross dressing city councilmen were thrown out of office, and in real countries -- like England -- whole governments toppled. Repeatedly.Face it, old time scandals weren't just fun, they were good for the economy. Homes for unwed mothers prospered, San Francisco got a reputation and a population boom, and English politicians single-handedly kept the British tabloids in business. They still do.But these days scandals just don't have the same bite. Maybe that's because they've gone from being a personal embarrassment to a prospering industry. Dick Morris, political advisor and well known pillow talker, is a good example -- he's given a whole new dimension to the concept of kiss and tell.After being accused by a $200-a night call girl (what's known in the business as an "impeccable source") of having a year-long affair -- during which time he reportedly let her listen in on phone conversations with the President, called the First Lady names which had previously been reserved for use by the press, and left the toilet seat up -- Morris resigned his position as the mastermind of Clinton's political comeback.It doesn't bother me that Morris went to a prostitute. Nor does it bother me that he discussed with her how his day was at work. What does piss me off is that I may have helped pay for it. President Clinton's campaign, like that of his challengers, receives money from the Federal Election Commission (motto: "Buying votes since 1974"). Clinton's campaign was paying Morris. The way I see it, if the government's going to spend my hard earned tax dollars getting someone elected, I'd like to think I'm the one getting screwed, not some two-bit political mastermind.So now that he's caught, poor Morris has to hang his head in shame every time he sees his call-girlfriend's photo in the Safeway checkout line. Then he gets to go home, look his wife in the eye and say, "Honey, what do you think we should do with the $2.5 million advance I just got from Random House?"That's right. Dick Morris' punishment for sharing privileged government information with a hooker, disgracing the President of the United States and having the best sex of his life is to be handed $2.5 million and have plenty of free time to write a book. And his girlfriend Sherry Rowlands? She got paid thousands to spill her guts to the Star.And you wonder why I want to find a scandal.A scandal can be a good career choice. Look at O.J., Oliver North and virtually everyone involved in the Watergate break-in except Nixon. All you need is disgrace, a story (plausibility optional), an agent and a ghost writer. G. Gordon Liddy ended up with a radio show. Donna Rice got a modeling contract. And church secretary Jessica Hahn got breast implants. It used to be if you wanted to make really big bucks you had to earn it the old fashioned way: play professional sports, electric guitar or a low IQ boxer in a movie. Now all you need is notoriety.That's why I expect Richard Jewell, the security guard in Atlanta who's been tenuously tied to the bombing at the Olympics, to top the best seller list. He's got everything it takes to be a top-grossing author: no talent, no story and a lot of pre-release publicity.They say the secret to success is to anticipate the next trend. Well here it is: I predict that the next wave of book signings will be fallen educators. Remember Dion Bruton, the Sterling, Virginia teacher who quit his job because it was discovered he was moonlighting as a porno video star? Then a couple of weeks ago George Meadows, an elementary school principal in West Virginia was arrested for offering oral sex to two cops while in a drag. And now Walte Conte, a high school principal in Ohio, has been accused of secretly videotaping cheerleaders as they changed into their bathing suits for a beach party at his lakefront home. I may not be a publisher, but I know a book trend when I see it.So now that I have my new career picked out I just need to decide on a specialty. Politics would take too long. And I can't see going through all that college to get my teaching degree. So that leaves me with only one real choice: Do you think there's a big demand for a $200-a night callguy?I didn't think so.