COVAD

It’s nearly a generation since the feds broke up AT&T. Still, the image of a monopolistic relic lives on in commercials for upstart phone companies. We find it here at a mock press conference by a telecom behemoth, where a flack vows the corporate chairman will allay fears “that we’re ill-suited as DSL providers of the modern Internet.” The geriatric chairman shuffles to the lectern and haltingly reads a statement written for him (we assume) by the flack: “Rest assured we are jiggy—jiggy?—with the phat, fly, funk-o-delic Internet lifestyle.”