MISCmedia for 10/13/00
Alter-Ego Mania

SOME OF THE GREAT COLUMNISTS in the art form's long history have used fictional alter egos to liven up their regular output and to give a different spin on the events of the day.

The legendary Mike Royko sometimes spoke through the identity of a hardboiled Chicago bartender named Slats Grobnik (or something like that).

Don Marquis occasionally submitted columns in all lower-case lettering, which he claimed had been typed by "archy," a cockroach with the mind of a reincarnated human. (Archy, as Marquis claimed it, typed by jumping on the typewriter keys, so he only could manage lower-case letters.)

Flann O'Brien, as we've previously mentioned, essentially wrote his entire Irish Times column in a pseudonymous persona, Myles na gCopaleen.

Never one to let a good writing shtick go unstolen, I've been pondering adding one or more imaginary guest voices take over the online column every now and then. (This is not to be confused with the real guest voices who show up here now and then.) (It's also not to be confused with the phenomenon of "hearing voices" from inside one's own head, something I must assure you I don't do.)

Here are the nominees for a new Kolumn Kharacter:

• Kirsten, the sullen barista. She hates her job, her apartment, her town, her parents, her boyfriend, her body, other women's bodies, and earthly existence in general. Her only joy in life is deliberately mixing up the coffee orders of the obnoxious rich bastards from the dot-com office next door.

• Derek, the 55-year-old record collector. Longs to return to a bygone analog world in which Clapton was God and working-stiff guys like himself still had a chance to make it. Can barely maneuver his 235-pound frame around his LP- and memorabilia-laden apartment.

• Janis and Anais, the mother-and-daughter punks. Mom has taught her precious girl how to do everything--how to go to high school with a hangover, how to dye one's own pubic hair, how to fall off a skateboard without serious injury, how to out-party any man, how to play the "power chord," how to adapt "I'm A Little Teapot" into a defiant hardcore anthem.

• Eudora Flies-With-Eagles Schwartz, the new age shaman. Claims to be descended from a different Indian nation every month. Has never been to a reservation or powwow, but knows all the secrets of the Way of the Warrior (and will share some of them with you for a modest fee).

• Freddy, the fetishist. If it hurts, if it embarrasses, he likes it. Believes women exist to serve men by punishing them.

• Demographic Debbie. The perfect representation of the upscale target market. A career, a house, a minivan, a husband, an ex-husband, two-point-five children (the "point-five" kid lives half the year with the ex-husband). Lives to shop; loves romantic getaways and fashionable restaurants; is devoutly middle-of-the-road politically; has never held an extreme voice or idea since high school. Favorite color: Beige.

• Riot Rosie and Radical Randy. They know exactly what's wrong with the world and won't stop telling you--it's the wasteful lifestyles of people other than themselves, and the fascistic hypocrisies of all governments that outlaw pot and legalize meat. Their only moments of self-doubt arise when they realize their failure to fully meet their own stratospheric standards of behavior.

• Pratt, the programmer. Doesn't know much about dating or grooming or healthy eating, but knows tons about Linux coding, Star Wars, multi-player networked games, Japanese candy, and why the Internet used to be so much better before the tall guys in suits took it over.

• Benny Bucks, the poor little rich man. A tall guy in a suit, forever complaining about how hard it is to make ends meet on $235,000 a year. The government and the PC thought police are always meddling in his life. Why just last week, the Forest Service wanted him to pay a fine for merely executing his God-given right to go off-roading in a sensitive area. And that sullen barista next door to his office never gets his order right.

Based on your responses, via email and at our MISCtalk discussion boards, one or perhaps more of these witty phantoms will make a full-length column appearance soon.

MONDAY: Awaiting the big Hollywood strike.

ELSEWHERE:

• New stadia like Safeco Field"appeal to fans' nostalgia the way Pottery Barn plays on urban consumers' kitschy rural yearnings: by delivering a pristine, expensive simulacrum of something that, historically, was neither...."
• Can't conceive kids? Blame hubby's old disposable diapers (found by Fark)....

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