Page Two
By Louis Black, Fri., April 2, 1999
Now February, sweet February was a special time here at the Chronicle. Lilacs and new grass were bred out of the dead land, inside the sound of bells, the smells of incense and the glow of Lava Lamps guided our way. The flow was the flow of work and the day-to-day was day-to-day. Barefoot staffers danced with crystal pure mountain water in one hand and style books in the other. Nick and I oppressed the workers, silenced dissenters, stole any petty change we found lying around, squashed dissent and charged three times the going price at the company store, but where else could the staff go to buy provisions?
But March, it came in like a lion and left like an angry one. The staff took to muttering. There were complaints about the paper's content. We are supposed to be a journal of many voices (well, sort of ...) and this caused the outbreak. Some felt there were too many voices in the Chronicle already, some felt not enough. A few thought we needed some more high-pitched voices while others threatened that lower, fuller voices were needed. "What about squeaky voices, what about creaky voices?" the shouts were heard. Everyone had an opinion. Nobody liked the way it was.
Everyone grew suspicious of everyone else. Those in favor of only pure and righteous voices, which oddly enough were only those that were sure they had them, thought the other voices were corrupt, immoral, racist and homophobic. Pretty much everything was racist, and homophobic. They demanded a new sun. They demanded revolution. They demanded that a lot of others shut up.
Late at night the pure and righteous held meetings from which they excluded the impure. This was all right with the impure because they were mostly busy being impure. The pure and righteous demanded changes.
One day we came in to work. The blondes were kept out but the dark-haired were let into the building. The mute demanded in, so finally those that couldn't speak had a voice! Height/ weight proportional people were driven from the building. Those with cars made between 1992 and 1994 were asked to leave until they could buy new cars or older ones. There were Black Helicopters in the parking lot.
The pure and righteous first shut everyone up and then opened up the Chronicle to many voices. They grabbed the issue. Praise the revolution. They printed it backwards. Power to the people! Down with dominant ideology and the traditional right-to-left linear-sequential manipulations of the capitalist ruling class and their international big business cronies. The medium is the massage. Now every reader is confused equally. No one is privileged. It's ass backward!
April should prove better.
