12 May 2005

A Phone Call from Hell

Behold, the draft of my final submission for the independent conservative campus paper.

Hello? Hello, can you hear me? I can scarcely tell anymore, with all of this static and noise. It's been eleven long years since the last call, when my flamboyant doppelganger stole my apparatus to take Zoo TV to the end of the world, and it's been five schizophrenic years since I sought refuge in your midst. It's been a pleasant stay, but the jig is up, so once again I'll fade into the vapor... But not before one more blaze of glory, like a burning star, falling from the sky.

Oh, we've had our moments together, even before I arrived in this vicinity... But for the sake of short memories, let's focus on recent history. After all, what's the point in lamenting that which is no longer in fashion? No one reminisces about mini skirts and bell bottoms; no one wears old shirts and calls it "vintage"; after all, there's no accounting for taste. I know you thought that pay phone call from the end of the world would be the last word, but I've been busy behind the scenes. And, true to form, I could only go on so long before Freud forced me to claim credit, all in the interest of infamy.

I must commend you all, though. You've bought into everything, the entire agenda, the whole program, hook, line, and sinker. You've made my job easier than I could have possibly imagined.

I gave you political correctness, and you made a cult of it. You abandoned common sense, and every trace of moral consistency disappeared along with it. With everyone labeled "special" and "protected", there’s nothing sacred, nothing unique… Don't believe me? Just take a stroll down Greek Row, where apparel and physique are as uniform as a military parade. Take heart, though, because you're all one, big, happy campus.

I gave you unconditional tolerance, so that you could embrace everything you hated, or just didn't understand. What a clever disguise it was for your intolerance of anyone who doesn't tell you what you want to hear! Don't believe me? Just ask David Williams.

I gave you the Internet, because radio and television just hadn't done the trick. News, weather, sport, music, cinema, thought, opinion, wisdom, all at the touch of a button. What did you do with it? You used it to promote every hedonistic impulse your microwave-soaked brains could muster. Why waste your time with life, the universe, and everything when a fiber-optic cable is even better than the real thing? Why think, when the ghost in the machine can do your thinking for you?

Oh, don't get me wrong, I've had my setbacks. Not all of my projects have worked in quite the way I intended. My rivals, few though they may be, gave you freedom, liberation, and dignity, and detained my apprentices. Oh, but, I had my revenge! My associates took your minds off of the pain by giving you Abu Ghraib, so that your outrage at the promise of emancipation and hope might know no limit. Why concentrate on the overwhelming goodness of many when you can focus on the wickedness of the few? After all, it's not as if scope, or perspective, or proportion are important.

I gave you Darfur, and Esfahan and Bushehr. My rival turned them into opportunities for justice. How did I respond? I gave you Michael Jackson and Scott Peterson, American Idle, and Ashton Kutcher in a trucker hat, and Paris Hilton in night vision. I gave you iPods, and you tuned out; that, dear ones, is beyond brilliant.

I had nothing to do with the fifty percent hike in tuition and fees since I arrived, but I relished it all the same. I adored your response! You let them use your wealth to put in brand new towel dispensers! You scarcely noticed, though. How could you? You were too busy enjoying the bread and circuses from every special group in the quad, without thinking to lament the source of these spectacles. You let them use your money to expand an arena for a handful of individuals. These are, of course, the same individuals who have done more since September to soil your reputation than your four years of toil and sleepless nights could have ever done to improve it. Let not your heart be troubled, though, because the "investment" promises alumni dollars, which have been sufficient so far – that’s why they’ve cut so many professors! Never mind that students will still be scarcely able to get tickets to see the games; after all, they should be spending their Saturdays studying. I even gave you [Generic University president], who in turn gave you political propaganda disguised as a journalism lecture.

Of course, I haven't been entirely successful. I picked this place as refuge because it looked ripe at the time, but just when I was getting comfortable, my rivals banded together. Had they failed, I might have replaced the ROTC building with monuments to Guevara, to match the T-Shirts. Instead, I had to fight a losing battle against the ideas of protecting babies, spending money wisely, or doing something more in college than drinking every weekend and sharing another unfamiliar bed with Trash, Trampoline, and the Party Girl. That last one really threw me for a loop, as you can well imagine.

So goodbye, [Generic University]... It’s no secret, no secret at all, that your beloved Fly is running out of change again, and besides that, I really must run, off to the real world to dream it all up again. Tomorrow will be a day without me, but we’ll all meet again, in another time, another place. In a city of blinding lights, where the streets have no name? A place that has to be believed to be seen? Who’s to say? For now, I’m stuck here, in this damned phone booth, in a place called Vertigo. Look, I’ve gotta go. Remember what I’ve taught you; especially that some things aren’t quite what they seem. *Click*

Don't have a clue what it's all about? Link, link, link, link.

Tell me what you think.

UPDATE: If you'll notice, the draft has been replaced with the final copy. Thanks for all of the encouragement. Any other thoughts?

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Very clever. Nice work, Tom.

Viva la Bono!
John

3:35 PM  

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