Lost My Faith in Everything

Goddamn the Virginia Tech massacre.

I had all these other great blog entries I've been meaning to get to -- gleefully revisiting old movies nobody cares about("Jack the Bear" and "The Last Boy Scout"), discussing the replacement of Back to the Future: The Ride with a Simpsons-themed ride at Universal Orlando -- but I kind of have to discuss Virginia Tech because all the other bloggers are blogging about it! (And I've already failed to eulogize Kurt Vonnegut, which I'm liable to lose my blogging license over.)

So, I'm morbidly fascinated by this media package Cho sent to NBC News --- while in the middle of his spree-kill! I can't even get an application out to the fringe festival on time, this kid manages to send out a press-packet while in the heat of his lunatic mass-murder/suicide rampage.

I'm baffled by the "unspecified wrongs" Cho blathers on about. His melodramatic script sounds like he's chopped it up from bits of pop-corn culture. Terminator 2, Planet of the Apes, The Day After Tomorrow. End of the world damnations, stripped of context and meaning. This is not a portrait of a young man who "couldn't take it anymore". It's a portrait of a young man who was genuinely psychotic.

Hey, I've got anger in me. The name of the blog's MISANTHROPY. I'm bitter about specific things -- in my life, in the world.

If (when?) I were to write my "Goodbye Cruel World" valentine, I would be very specific about why I was driven to [INSERT AWESOME ACT OF VIOLENCE]. I may be fairly oblique on this blog at times, but if I were exiting the planet -- I'd be inclined toward bluntness. Clarity. I'd want the world to LEARN from *my* lessons. Leave nothing up to interpretation. That was Christ's biggest blooper. (HEY OH!!!) Nah, I wouldn't fuck it up like Jesus did...

Apparently, Cho had the name "Ismael Ax" tattooed on his arm. I've seen different reports on the spelling of it, so it's hard to say, but I popped it into the old ANAGRAM generator and came up with a few winners:

EX-SALAMI
MALE AXIS
A SEAL MIX

and, perhaps most revealing:

PAULO LIES

Who cooked up this kid? Weird thing is, I heard about this story a few days ago and I didn't think much of it. Just seemed like another freak thing that happened. I was going to let it float on by, but the story seemed to snowball.

And ultimately, it was just another freak thing. Yeah, there was writing on the walls, and we can trace back all the points where this kid could've been prevented from slipping through the cracks. It just seems to me that he wasn't troubled: he was out of his fucking skull. Crazier than a bag of squirrels, as they say. These things happen like natural disasters. I feel like sometimes these things just have to happen for no apparent reason. And for all our illusions of preparedness, that's that and there's nuttin that anybody could do. [Knock over phone booth.]

All right, lemme double-check to make sure this entry's got everything. Virginia Tech... Jack the Bear... Back to the Future: The Ride... Kurt Vonnegut... Goodfellas reference... subtle dig at LOST... cavalier blasphemy... did I mention anything about 90,000 starving baboons? Ahhh, it'll have to do for today...