I’ll Give You An Interview
I sat down at my living room table yesterday with a bowl of soup and a glass of milk as my healthy lunch. As I do most days, I flipped on the television to find some sort of sitcom to watch during the half hour it takes me to enjoy my meal. The television clicked on and, as it always does, started on NBC.
I happened to catch a few minutes of some news program that must run during the lunch hours. The particular segment I caught was some attractive woman doing a quick rundown of some headlines, appropriating about thirty seconds to informing her viewers of the news and then giving her own opinion on the subject. The first headline I happened to catch in its entirety was regarding Facebook.
As I’m sure most of you know, a little while back Facebook implemented this new Timeline interface for profiles. Nobody had to switch to it and people generally didn’t like it, but it was a new option. According to this NBC news program, a few weeks from now all Facebook users will be forced to switch to this new Timeline interface, whether they like it or not.
I don’t really care at all about Facebook’s Timeline or what it does with its users. I use Facebook and I certainly don’t like every change they have made. The fact of the matter, though, is that I have nothing to do with those decisions and there is nothing I can do it about it short of deleting my account. I’m definitely not a fan of Timeline but I’m sure I’ll get use to it.
My issue is that Facebook changing its user interface classifies as news. I understand that almost the entire world uses Facebook and that the information is relevant to pretty much everyone. But is it really news? Does it really deserve a minute or two on a news program? I’m extremely curious to know what this Facebook news edged out as far as importance or relevance goes.
I’m not going to get into a giant rant about the media and news programs as that is meant for another day when I’m focused on that particular topic. Instead, I’m using this story to segue into a piece I wrote during my senior year at St. John’s University.
The piece was written for a Fiction Creative Writing class and our instruction was to write a monologue in the voice of another person, real or fictitious. I chose to write in the voice of Spider Jerusalem, the main character of Warren Ellis’ Transmetropolitan, one of my absolute favorite comic series. The piece kind of exemplifies and shares some of the thoughts I have about the media and the government and how people see both entities, and this recent Facebook news bit reminded me of the piece.
I hope you all enjoy it. If you like it, or thought I did a terrible job imitating Spider Jerusalem, please let me know.
I’ll Give You An Interview
Jesus Christ! Are you trying to give me a heart attack? No, don’t apologize to me, just walk away. I don’t care who sent you. Did you not hear what I just said? I said walk away. This can only end badly for you. Didn’t you see what I did to the President?
Yes, I will do that to you, I don’t care who you work for. I’ll turn the setting to “prolapse” and fire away before you have a chance to even ask me one question. Fine, call the police, they’ll never take me alive and they know it. I’ll burn that precinct to the ground before they can judge me for anything, just you watch.
You’re a pushy little bastard aren’t you? I guess that’s why they sent you. They figured I’d take a liking to you because you don’t back down. Well guess what? I hate you, I truly do, but I’ll allow you to walk with me while I go get my breakfast. The moment we get back here, though, I’ll sick my cat on you if you haven’t disappeared.
No, put that notepad away. I’m going to do all the talking and you’re going to do all the listening. All those questions you would ask me are bullshit anyway. Who cares what my favorite color is? I don’t even care what my favorite color is, nor do I care what my favorite food, movie, or sexual position is. Actually, scratch that, sexual position is important but considering you will never see it I refuse to discuss it.
WATCH WHERE YOU’RE GOING, ASSHOLE! Did you see that? That jerk nearly just killed us both without a moment’s hesitation. That is probably what I hate most about this city. Nobody gives a damn about anything but themselves anymore. There is no such thing as human nature and good will, it died with the past. All there is now are jerks and liars who grab a hold of the little authority they have and squeeze it to their hearts desire, pissing and shitting on everyone else for no reason at all.
I mean come on, look at these streets. This city is literally buried in garbage because those schmucks are on strike because the company just recently allowed Transients to work for them. Who cares if Transients work at the landfills or on the trucks? Just because they have bigger eyes, odd hair, and gills doesn’t make them any different from you or me, yet there are riots and fires over that bullshit. With all of this technology and time you would have thought we’d move past petty things like civil rights but nope, we’re still stuck here wallowing in our own filth, literally, because everyone is out for themselves.
And you know what the saddest part of it all is? Nobody cares. People just feed themselves on the lies and bullshit that the government and media shits out as long as it is what they want to hear. Taxes can go down and people will be happy because the “people in charge” won’t tell you that the government could lower taxes because they recently received a lot of income from overseas terrorist organizations in exchange for military weapons. What, you didn’t know that? Of course you didn’t, the piece of shit rag paper you work for decided that that story wasn’t news and opted to post about that new porn video instead. Because that’s news.
Look at these people! They’re just sitting around, enjoying this gorgeous morning without a care in the world. I envy them in some respects, but the truth is I hate them all and I hate this city. All of these people can sit here and enjoy their breakfast in the park because our government is killing innocents and raping children and the people don’t care. They should, and you know what? I’m going to tell them.
YOU PEOPLE DON’T KNOW WHAT THE TRUTH IS! IT’S THERE, JUST UNDER THEIR BULLSHIT, BUT YOU NEVER LOOK!
That’s what I hate most about this fucking city – lies are truth and the truth is obsolete. They see me screaming at them and don’t even care. All they see is a freak with glasses spitting the truth at them but they’ve been so conditioned they don’t even recognize it. I hate them all. I really do. And I hate you.
You’re just a part of it! You’re going to go back to your editor and make up some bullshit about how I gave you a great interview and not a single word I’ve said is going to see print. You know why? Because this isn’t news. This is the truth. The cold hard truth. And you can’t stand it, not one word of it. You make me sick.
You know what? Get the hell away from me. We’re done. Tell your editor that I told him he can go fuck himself for ruining my perfect morning.