'Face of Evil'
Did you hear that last weekend, Dave Chappelle did a stand-up comedy set that lasted over six hours, without breaks? It beat the previous record of three hours and something minutes by Dane Cook just the week before, but that was in tribute to his father who'd just died and he went up there as a sort of catharsis thing. That makes me feel bad, in a way, for Dane. Not that his record was usurped, but that his dad died. No, I don't know either men - one's a celebrity and one's a celebrity's father - but I find myself empathizing regardless.
Which is in stark contrast to how I feel about those who were killed on the Virginia Tech campus this week. Again, these are people I don't know, and yet to hear about the tragedy I feel nothing. Neither bad nor good.
Of course, the difference here is that because Dane IS a celebrity, and because I've listened to a number of hours of his stand up routine in which he occasionally references and imitates his father, I feel like I know him on some superficial level and with that knowledge comes empathy for the fact that his father died.
The only person who I know on a superficial level involved in the massacre this week is just some South Korean 23 year old who's a really BAD writer.
I mean, seriously, have you SEEN the tapes? Have you listened to what this guy had to say? Can you imagine having a conversation with this rambling obsessive?
Hey Cho, sorry that I couldn't make it to the movie last night. I had TONS of homework and stuff.
You have vandalized my heart, raped my soul, and torched my conscience.
Uhh, yeah, well anyway, my bad. So, what are you doing tonight, you wanna maybe go to a bar, catch the ballgame?
Thanks to you, I die like Jesus Christ, to inspire generations of the weak and the defenseless people.
Who's he talking to? I'm ASKING you! Who's he talking to? I want names. I want a list of those who wronged this gentleman. You know how I hate people who write in the abstract like that. Talking to the General You. The You who is Whoever Reads This And Disagrees With Me. It's hackey, it's cliche bullshit, and it simply must stop. I can't imagine what those bullshit plays must've read like, but I bet they were terrible. Killing 32 people is one thing, but making us read your awful writing I just won't stand for!
So, now his pictures are plastered on the front pages of all the newspapers. am New York has the words "FACE OF EVIL" plastered across his chest in bold black letters. He's holding guns, wearing a backwards cap and a vest of some kind with something else clipped to his belt and a menacing look on his face. Kind of like when you ask your four year old cousin to "show us your scary face" while you're holding a camera. I'd be terrified of this man if he wasn't so adorable. There's another picture of him holding a hammer up by his head and his mouth's slightly agape with his teeth clenched, which brings to mind: "Awww, wooks wike SOMEBODY'S cwanky. I think someone needs to take a nappy poo."
The nation - indeed the world - is officially gaga over this Cho Seung-Hui. They're now just calling him "The Killer" as if he'd done something to earn that title. It's hard to believe this is the biggest massacre in our nation's history - maybe it's just the biggest school massacre, I dunno. Anyway, everyone's up in arms. People are outraged, they're hurt, they're feeling sad things for those who died and whose families have to cope, they're sending out "thoughts and prayers", they're holding candlelight vigils, they're telling everyone to avoid an Asian Backlash, they're even donating money.
While they're at it, everyone's also completely consumed with the STORY. They're reading articles, watching the news, waiting for more revelations to be leaked, eating up what all these so-called experts have to say about homicidal depressives, wondering just what kind of mind is capable of doing such a horrendous act. Eventually, a few people will write a few books on the subject and they'll skyrocket to number one on the charts; maybe a TV movie will be made and shown on ABC's Sunday Night Theater - or if interest has waned, it'll be on Lifetime's Movies For Women (with an extraspecial emphasis on his stalking of women and an overall theme of Men Are Pigs).
I don't get it; I never have. Everyone always says, "Oh, it's such a tragedy; oh those poor families; oh what a bad bad man," and yet this is the very subject that everyone's interested in reading, everyone's interested in seeing on the news and watching in the movies. True Crime novels have always and will always be wildly popular; news stories about serial killers will continue to sell more newspapers and magazines than any other; movies and TV shows with guns and violence - tastefully done, of course - will forever delight the masses. So, I'm afraid you can't have it both ways; you can't be all sad and mourning the dead while at the same time transfixed by the act and curious about the actor.
I'm interested, I'm transfixed and curious and consumed, but I don't give a shit about the result. As a character, I'm interested in this guy and what and how he thought. I want to know what was going through his mind in his final days, in his final hours. But, I want to KNOW because I'm a writer and I think it'd help me as an author. Aside from that, on a personal level, I'd like to know where and how he and I differ. What were the circumstances that caused him to diverge from the path of Not Killing People to the one he chose? Considering, of course, that I'm on the path of Not Killing People and I don't plan on leaving that path any time soon. Is it true what they say, do people just snap?
I'm inclined to disagree with that sort of thinking. Sure, there's murder that's a direct result of something traumatic happening - a mugger shoots your wife in the head, perhaps you wouldn't think twice - but when you're getting into the process of premeditated assassination, you know there's more to it than one simple event. One girl turning down a date from one guy isn't going to cause him to go on a killcrazy rampage. But, a lifetime of girls, a lifetime of lonliness, an eternity filled with the feeling of helplessness JUST might make someone want to feel like a person who has authority. A person who has some power. Real power; the power to take a life.
We all tumble through this life needing and lacking something: love, money, happiness, success, companionship, ability, a feeling of worth, confidence; and we all spend that lifetime trying to accrue whatever it is we lack and need. Sometimes, some people just get beaten down and broken so far that the only thing they have left is helplessness. That's when the mind shuts down and is left with its most basic faculties: Things just won't get any better, so I gotta get out now. And in this case, he got out and he took a few people with him. Just to experience that which he'd lacked all his life.
And if he'd SAID it like that, instead of You had a hundred billion chances and ways to have avoided today, but you decided to spill my blood, then maybe there wouldn't be the ambiguity and people would KNOW what the hell he was talking about and they'd be just a little less curious as to WHY someone could DO what he DID.
Next time, I want names, or I'm not giving it one iota of my time.
Which is in stark contrast to how I feel about those who were killed on the Virginia Tech campus this week. Again, these are people I don't know, and yet to hear about the tragedy I feel nothing. Neither bad nor good.
Of course, the difference here is that because Dane IS a celebrity, and because I've listened to a number of hours of his stand up routine in which he occasionally references and imitates his father, I feel like I know him on some superficial level and with that knowledge comes empathy for the fact that his father died.
The only person who I know on a superficial level involved in the massacre this week is just some South Korean 23 year old who's a really BAD writer.
I mean, seriously, have you SEEN the tapes? Have you listened to what this guy had to say? Can you imagine having a conversation with this rambling obsessive?
Hey Cho, sorry that I couldn't make it to the movie last night. I had TONS of homework and stuff.
You have vandalized my heart, raped my soul, and torched my conscience.
Uhh, yeah, well anyway, my bad. So, what are you doing tonight, you wanna maybe go to a bar, catch the ballgame?
Thanks to you, I die like Jesus Christ, to inspire generations of the weak and the defenseless people.
Who's he talking to? I'm ASKING you! Who's he talking to? I want names. I want a list of those who wronged this gentleman. You know how I hate people who write in the abstract like that. Talking to the General You. The You who is Whoever Reads This And Disagrees With Me. It's hackey, it's cliche bullshit, and it simply must stop. I can't imagine what those bullshit plays must've read like, but I bet they were terrible. Killing 32 people is one thing, but making us read your awful writing I just won't stand for!
So, now his pictures are plastered on the front pages of all the newspapers. am New York has the words "FACE OF EVIL" plastered across his chest in bold black letters. He's holding guns, wearing a backwards cap and a vest of some kind with something else clipped to his belt and a menacing look on his face. Kind of like when you ask your four year old cousin to "show us your scary face" while you're holding a camera. I'd be terrified of this man if he wasn't so adorable. There's another picture of him holding a hammer up by his head and his mouth's slightly agape with his teeth clenched, which brings to mind: "Awww, wooks wike SOMEBODY'S cwanky. I think someone needs to take a nappy poo."
The nation - indeed the world - is officially gaga over this Cho Seung-Hui. They're now just calling him "The Killer" as if he'd done something to earn that title. It's hard to believe this is the biggest massacre in our nation's history - maybe it's just the biggest school massacre, I dunno. Anyway, everyone's up in arms. People are outraged, they're hurt, they're feeling sad things for those who died and whose families have to cope, they're sending out "thoughts and prayers", they're holding candlelight vigils, they're telling everyone to avoid an Asian Backlash, they're even donating money.
While they're at it, everyone's also completely consumed with the STORY. They're reading articles, watching the news, waiting for more revelations to be leaked, eating up what all these so-called experts have to say about homicidal depressives, wondering just what kind of mind is capable of doing such a horrendous act. Eventually, a few people will write a few books on the subject and they'll skyrocket to number one on the charts; maybe a TV movie will be made and shown on ABC's Sunday Night Theater - or if interest has waned, it'll be on Lifetime's Movies For Women (with an extraspecial emphasis on his stalking of women and an overall theme of Men Are Pigs).
I don't get it; I never have. Everyone always says, "Oh, it's such a tragedy; oh those poor families; oh what a bad bad man," and yet this is the very subject that everyone's interested in reading, everyone's interested in seeing on the news and watching in the movies. True Crime novels have always and will always be wildly popular; news stories about serial killers will continue to sell more newspapers and magazines than any other; movies and TV shows with guns and violence - tastefully done, of course - will forever delight the masses. So, I'm afraid you can't have it both ways; you can't be all sad and mourning the dead while at the same time transfixed by the act and curious about the actor.
I'm interested, I'm transfixed and curious and consumed, but I don't give a shit about the result. As a character, I'm interested in this guy and what and how he thought. I want to know what was going through his mind in his final days, in his final hours. But, I want to KNOW because I'm a writer and I think it'd help me as an author. Aside from that, on a personal level, I'd like to know where and how he and I differ. What were the circumstances that caused him to diverge from the path of Not Killing People to the one he chose? Considering, of course, that I'm on the path of Not Killing People and I don't plan on leaving that path any time soon. Is it true what they say, do people just snap?
I'm inclined to disagree with that sort of thinking. Sure, there's murder that's a direct result of something traumatic happening - a mugger shoots your wife in the head, perhaps you wouldn't think twice - but when you're getting into the process of premeditated assassination, you know there's more to it than one simple event. One girl turning down a date from one guy isn't going to cause him to go on a killcrazy rampage. But, a lifetime of girls, a lifetime of lonliness, an eternity filled with the feeling of helplessness JUST might make someone want to feel like a person who has authority. A person who has some power. Real power; the power to take a life.
We all tumble through this life needing and lacking something: love, money, happiness, success, companionship, ability, a feeling of worth, confidence; and we all spend that lifetime trying to accrue whatever it is we lack and need. Sometimes, some people just get beaten down and broken so far that the only thing they have left is helplessness. That's when the mind shuts down and is left with its most basic faculties: Things just won't get any better, so I gotta get out now. And in this case, he got out and he took a few people with him. Just to experience that which he'd lacked all his life.
And if he'd SAID it like that, instead of You had a hundred billion chances and ways to have avoided today, but you decided to spill my blood, then maybe there wouldn't be the ambiguity and people would KNOW what the hell he was talking about and they'd be just a little less curious as to WHY someone could DO what he DID.
Next time, I want names, or I'm not giving it one iota of my time.
