Ash Riot is standing on the edge of the George Washington Bridge, waiting for sunrise. This is where his story will end. But before it ends, he will testify. He will tell you how it all begins. He will tell you what brings the most famous voice in the world up to a bridge like this. He'll tell you how he just graduated college after wandering lost among the chosen ones his entire life. And how he may have just been charged with a righteous task by God Himself. Or he may have just been dead of an overdose and hallucinating. He will tell you his mission is righteous because we are all righteous. He will tell you the story of his rise to fame as a media-messiah through his platform of hate and rage. He'll tell you about shopping cart bowling and buying milk and about girls and friends and about a cattle drive in an Audi A-8. He will tell you to kill yourselves. He will tell you it is the only answer. But, if you're really listening, you'll prove him wrong.
Excerpt:
This is how it starts.
I’m not a magician. Or maybe I am. But if I am, I’m the worst one you will ever see perform because I’m going to tell you all my secrets before the tricks even begin. I’m going to tell you all exactly what I’m going to do, and how I plan to do it. I’m going to tell you stories you already know, because they’re all about you. And I’m going to make some way-clever language work for me. I’m going to turn phrases like you won’t believe and create truth from the ashes of clichés, politics, entertainment, the vox populi and whatever the hell else comes to mind as I bleed hate over the keys of a laptop computer. And all of it for you. All of this so that, maybe, one day, you too-cool-for-school, diamond-hard ***** will feel something. So maybe you’ll see yourselves differently. As a generation of fuck-ups, poseurs, charlatans, apathetic ******** who could remake the world in any image you choose, move mountains of hypocrisy and build an honest empire on the ruins of lies that we have all been feeding ourselves since George Washington never cut down a cherry tree. Since masturbation didn’t make you go blind and honest Abe became a liar and since Pluto isn’t even a planet.
I’m going to show you all that you are failures.
That you could walk on water if you weren’t so comfortable being comfortable. Too busy sipping colored beverages and watching Meg Ryan movies to notice the bodies you step over on the way to the video store.
A weapon or two that you can use to fight the world our fathers have left us. And a tool or two to rebuild. Some of you might even get your souls back in the process, if you pay enough attention.
Pay attention.
I’m going to scream at you. Tell you how much I hate every single one of you. I’m going to assault you. I have a weapon in my hands and, indeed, it is mightier than the sword. My pen is my boomstick. My keyboard: a cannon. My voice can split atoms.
I’m going to blow off your fingers with nouns and salt the stumps with verbs. But, if you’re really listening, I’ll clean the wounds with adjectives and bandage them with nominative clauses. All I’ve got are words, friends. But, if you listen, if you stop talking long enough to learn something, they’ll be enough.
And at the end of each column I will tell you all that you’re hopeless. I will tell you how much you’ve ****** up, and shout obscenities at you, and I will tell you all to kill yourselves. I’ll tell you that it’s the only answer. But, if you’re really listening, you’ll prove me wrong.