Through the Light of the Bottle
Of Harvard Students and Jersey Kids
“Well at least he did he research,” I point out that day in the board room. On the table is the magazine, perched on the gleaming wooden tables smelling of Lysol. The swipes from the duster, faintly present.
“What in god’s name are you talking about Kate?” Brian asks dumbfounded.
“He chose the right magazine, I’m saying,” I calmly stand up, briefly clutching the glossy cover with his coal smudge eyes deeply staring off into god knows where; emo heaven.
“He didn’t go to some magazine where they have issues about who has the biggest penis in Washington. He went to fucking Time,” I pace around the leather chairs of my colleges. “We can’t get ourselves out of Time. He did his research, he got the right magazine.”
“Go fix it,” Brian rests his head in his hands, his fingers running through his fake army buzz cut.
I stop dead, my red heels about to click on the wooden floors.
“Excuse me?” I ask with a laugh, “I hardly doubt it’s of vital importance for me to tell some Emo to shut up about his alcohol problems.”
“He has the number one CD in the country right now. He’s on TRL, he’s on the Today show,” Brian spits out, “you don’t think he has any influence on those kids, your thinking wrong.”
“Yeah and then there’s half the kids of America that hate him and his band and any damn word that comes out his mouth!” I shout stupidly.
“Actually, 78% of all teenagers have at least one of their records,” some hopeful intern pipes up from the middle of the table, his hand raised hesitantly, quickly falling as I send him a death glare.
“Shut up Harvard,” I name all the interns based off what school they go to. There’s six Harvards, two Yales, one Berkeley. They all got respectable educations. They all want to be me.
They all have to learn the feeling of disappointment then.
“You think the Ambassador would be peachy with those statistics?”
The Ambassador is the owner of our company. He invented my job. And Brian had to pull that one out on me. He would fight with a man, dying on his death bed from liver damage, that one last drink would be good for him.
I sigh and gather my folders.
“We sent Jim there last Saturday,” he stands up and excuses the rest of the mindless, spineless interns and staff.
My mouth turns up in a sarcastic grin. Jim, a big football player in high school, piercing blue eyes, a walking build board for Gap, was sent to talk to Gerard Way.
Cute.
“I’m sure that went great. My Chem seems like the kind of guys that would kindly listen to the kid that beat them up in high school.”
“My Chem,” Brian grabs my arm, “what the hell, you have cutest little nicknames already?”
“No, I have annoying little cousins,” I yank my arm out of his grip. “So let me get this straight. I’m going to go to Jersey, sit down with some guy who doesn’t want our money and would rather sic his mafia friends on me than hear our organization’s name ever again, and fix your mistake for sending Jim down there?”
“And shut him up.”
“Or right, and shut him up. You expect me to do all this?”
“Pretty sure that was worded in your contract,” Brian hands me a train ticket.
“I’m a pretty resourceful girl Brian; I can handle a taxi cab.”
“A taxi is what you use after our product, not during,” and with that he walked away. I looked at the train ticket, swearing before shifting my folders in my arms and walking out the building to my apartment.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I’m the spokesperson for the National Alcoholic Studies Institution. NASI. And if you think it’s weird that is looks like NASA, then you caught on to our ploy.
Kids love space ergo, kids love NASA.
Therefore, kids love us. And the whole point of us is to make alcohol seem as harmful as coca cola.
It’s very evil. All those head honchos, that appointed the advertising yuppie to come up with that name, are smiling with pride and sipping vodka to the thought of some fourteen year old having a conscientious connection to our company.
And our company basically disproves scientists.
Well, not disprove more like invalidates them. Yes, the people that went to MIT and CIT, we try to make them look like fools.
We make mothers of M.A.D. look like crazed lunatics.
And now I have to go make Gerard Way of band of the fucking universe My Chemical Romance shut up cause of his need to speak out.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
It started with an advertisement.
I have to admit, part of me knew it was the end there.
They flashed to this video of him passing out drunk in front of his tour bus. His band mate comes up to him and leans over, helping him up. He stumbles off into the bushes, band mate in tow, patting his back as he throws up all over the bushes in the parking lot; those poor gardeners.
Then it cuts to somber looking Gerard Way, preaching to the world on how it took away from his artistic being blah blah blah, don’t under age drink, learn to stop, alcohol is the drink of the devil.
Then came these magazine ads, two pictures, one again of him throwing up into the unlucky bush and one of him belting out to thousands of fans, an hint of a smile lurks his eyes.
“Which one do you prefer? Don’t get caught up in alcohol. It can make dreams impossible.”
Great, not only will we destroy your liver, but we’re dream crushers while were at it.
Then the article came. He sat down with Time, the smart little fucker, and spilled every awful detail about his disease, his alcoholism, how he’ll never be the same, how he wishes all kids out there could see they don’t need it, how he has liver damage, emotional damage.
Oh, we can show you emotional damage Mr. Way.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I stepped outside an arena. I tugged at my white shirt, the heat of the summer making the fabric cling to my torso.
My red flats clank nosily as I entered the arena, flashing my pass to the guard, only to receive a weary look and the go ahead of his huge arm guiding me through the doorway.
I sot on a couch the first empty room I find. I looked at a sign on the open door that read “MCR Rest Room” and “chill out mother fuckers!” was scribbled at the bottom.
I set my briefcase down that was filled with nothing. Brian wanted me to bring money. I left it in the safe in my hotel room.
I wasn’t retarded. He wasn’t taking hush money.
We tried to give him hush money after the T.V. ad.
What did we get?
A magazine ad that was even better. A One, two punch, with a fuck you at the end.
Suddenly, this bouncy guy ran in, grabbed a guitar in the corner next to me, and almost ran out of the door back into the smoke filled hallway, before stopping and turning around.
Frank Iero, lip ring and all stood confused in the doorway, head cocked to the side as he stared at me sitting on the ratty old sofa.
“You one of Bob’s girls?” he scratched his head with his guitar pick.
“Uh, no,” I calmly say, leaning back in the shredded fabric. “I’m actually here for Gerard.”
“Oh, sorry, honest mistake,” he grins manically at me, “You seem like his type is the thing.”
“And what would his type be?”
“Gorgeous yet could kick your ass.”
I smile slightly, letting the gorgeous part slide off me like a bar of soap, “cute.”
He grins and pulls his head to look down the hallway.
“Well, here comes your Gee now,” he speaks to the empty hallway, but I assume he’s talking to me.
“Who the hell you talking to Iero?” comes his Jersey voice.
I had actually spoken to him before, when he was an artistic for that network. I was a journalist trying to get my start by working for some underground magazine for the geeks and nerds of the world of comic books and how they were made. He showed me around, introduced me to people, and even showed me his drawings for a cute cartoon called the breakfast monkey.
He thought he was going to be some hot shot artist. I thought the same.
Then 9/11 happened, comic books seemed irrelevant, I lost my job, he quit his, and I never saw him again.
Until now as he stands in the doorway with a lopsided smile as he sees me adorning his couch.
Until he notices my briefcase.
“Get out,” he calmly states, starting towards me, “I know what you’re here for, and don’t want to ever see or speak to you or anyone connected to you again.”
“Fine,” I smile slightly. He’s still as stubborn as I remember him. I stand up, looking him straight in the eye as I easily lifting my empty brief case. “Thanks for your time, have a great show.”
“You aren’t going to fight?” He’s taken back, “you aren’t going to make me shut up?”
“Gerard, that would be a violation of your first amendment right,” I calmly state as I walk out the door, turning around before leaving, “And at NASI, we’re all about protecting the people,” I add with a grin as I leave the room, ignoring the shouts and swears from him and the wide eyes from the rest of the band mates.
“But just so you know Gerard,” I yell over my shoulder, “some Jersey kid sure as hell won’t shut me up.”
“What in god’s name are you talking about Kate?” Brian asks dumbfounded.
“He chose the right magazine, I’m saying,” I calmly stand up, briefly clutching the glossy cover with his coal smudge eyes deeply staring off into god knows where; emo heaven.
“He didn’t go to some magazine where they have issues about who has the biggest penis in Washington. He went to fucking Time,” I pace around the leather chairs of my colleges. “We can’t get ourselves out of Time. He did his research, he got the right magazine.”
“Go fix it,” Brian rests his head in his hands, his fingers running through his fake army buzz cut.
I stop dead, my red heels about to click on the wooden floors.
“Excuse me?” I ask with a laugh, “I hardly doubt it’s of vital importance for me to tell some Emo to shut up about his alcohol problems.”
“He has the number one CD in the country right now. He’s on TRL, he’s on the Today show,” Brian spits out, “you don’t think he has any influence on those kids, your thinking wrong.”
“Yeah and then there’s half the kids of America that hate him and his band and any damn word that comes out his mouth!” I shout stupidly.
“Actually, 78% of all teenagers have at least one of their records,” some hopeful intern pipes up from the middle of the table, his hand raised hesitantly, quickly falling as I send him a death glare.
“Shut up Harvard,” I name all the interns based off what school they go to. There’s six Harvards, two Yales, one Berkeley. They all got respectable educations. They all want to be me.
They all have to learn the feeling of disappointment then.
“You think the Ambassador would be peachy with those statistics?”
The Ambassador is the owner of our company. He invented my job. And Brian had to pull that one out on me. He would fight with a man, dying on his death bed from liver damage, that one last drink would be good for him.
I sigh and gather my folders.
“We sent Jim there last Saturday,” he stands up and excuses the rest of the mindless, spineless interns and staff.
My mouth turns up in a sarcastic grin. Jim, a big football player in high school, piercing blue eyes, a walking build board for Gap, was sent to talk to Gerard Way.
Cute.
“I’m sure that went great. My Chem seems like the kind of guys that would kindly listen to the kid that beat them up in high school.”
“My Chem,” Brian grabs my arm, “what the hell, you have cutest little nicknames already?”
“No, I have annoying little cousins,” I yank my arm out of his grip. “So let me get this straight. I’m going to go to Jersey, sit down with some guy who doesn’t want our money and would rather sic his mafia friends on me than hear our organization’s name ever again, and fix your mistake for sending Jim down there?”
“And shut him up.”
“Or right, and shut him up. You expect me to do all this?”
“Pretty sure that was worded in your contract,” Brian hands me a train ticket.
“I’m a pretty resourceful girl Brian; I can handle a taxi cab.”
“A taxi is what you use after our product, not during,” and with that he walked away. I looked at the train ticket, swearing before shifting my folders in my arms and walking out the building to my apartment.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I’m the spokesperson for the National Alcoholic Studies Institution. NASI. And if you think it’s weird that is looks like NASA, then you caught on to our ploy.
Kids love space ergo, kids love NASA.
Therefore, kids love us. And the whole point of us is to make alcohol seem as harmful as coca cola.
It’s very evil. All those head honchos, that appointed the advertising yuppie to come up with that name, are smiling with pride and sipping vodka to the thought of some fourteen year old having a conscientious connection to our company.
And our company basically disproves scientists.
Well, not disprove more like invalidates them. Yes, the people that went to MIT and CIT, we try to make them look like fools.
We make mothers of M.A.D. look like crazed lunatics.
And now I have to go make Gerard Way of band of the fucking universe My Chemical Romance shut up cause of his need to speak out.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
It started with an advertisement.
I have to admit, part of me knew it was the end there.
They flashed to this video of him passing out drunk in front of his tour bus. His band mate comes up to him and leans over, helping him up. He stumbles off into the bushes, band mate in tow, patting his back as he throws up all over the bushes in the parking lot; those poor gardeners.
Then it cuts to somber looking Gerard Way, preaching to the world on how it took away from his artistic being blah blah blah, don’t under age drink, learn to stop, alcohol is the drink of the devil.
Then came these magazine ads, two pictures, one again of him throwing up into the unlucky bush and one of him belting out to thousands of fans, an hint of a smile lurks his eyes.
“Which one do you prefer? Don’t get caught up in alcohol. It can make dreams impossible.”
Great, not only will we destroy your liver, but we’re dream crushers while were at it.
Then the article came. He sat down with Time, the smart little fucker, and spilled every awful detail about his disease, his alcoholism, how he’ll never be the same, how he wishes all kids out there could see they don’t need it, how he has liver damage, emotional damage.
Oh, we can show you emotional damage Mr. Way.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I stepped outside an arena. I tugged at my white shirt, the heat of the summer making the fabric cling to my torso.
My red flats clank nosily as I entered the arena, flashing my pass to the guard, only to receive a weary look and the go ahead of his huge arm guiding me through the doorway.
I sot on a couch the first empty room I find. I looked at a sign on the open door that read “MCR Rest Room” and “chill out mother fuckers!” was scribbled at the bottom.
I set my briefcase down that was filled with nothing. Brian wanted me to bring money. I left it in the safe in my hotel room.
I wasn’t retarded. He wasn’t taking hush money.
We tried to give him hush money after the T.V. ad.
What did we get?
A magazine ad that was even better. A One, two punch, with a fuck you at the end.
Suddenly, this bouncy guy ran in, grabbed a guitar in the corner next to me, and almost ran out of the door back into the smoke filled hallway, before stopping and turning around.
Frank Iero, lip ring and all stood confused in the doorway, head cocked to the side as he stared at me sitting on the ratty old sofa.
“You one of Bob’s girls?” he scratched his head with his guitar pick.
“Uh, no,” I calmly say, leaning back in the shredded fabric. “I’m actually here for Gerard.”
“Oh, sorry, honest mistake,” he grins manically at me, “You seem like his type is the thing.”
“And what would his type be?”
“Gorgeous yet could kick your ass.”
I smile slightly, letting the gorgeous part slide off me like a bar of soap, “cute.”
He grins and pulls his head to look down the hallway.
“Well, here comes your Gee now,” he speaks to the empty hallway, but I assume he’s talking to me.
“Who the hell you talking to Iero?” comes his Jersey voice.
I had actually spoken to him before, when he was an artistic for that network. I was a journalist trying to get my start by working for some underground magazine for the geeks and nerds of the world of comic books and how they were made. He showed me around, introduced me to people, and even showed me his drawings for a cute cartoon called the breakfast monkey.
He thought he was going to be some hot shot artist. I thought the same.
Then 9/11 happened, comic books seemed irrelevant, I lost my job, he quit his, and I never saw him again.
Until now as he stands in the doorway with a lopsided smile as he sees me adorning his couch.
Until he notices my briefcase.
“Get out,” he calmly states, starting towards me, “I know what you’re here for, and don’t want to ever see or speak to you or anyone connected to you again.”
“Fine,” I smile slightly. He’s still as stubborn as I remember him. I stand up, looking him straight in the eye as I easily lifting my empty brief case. “Thanks for your time, have a great show.”
“You aren’t going to fight?” He’s taken back, “you aren’t going to make me shut up?”
“Gerard, that would be a violation of your first amendment right,” I calmly state as I walk out the door, turning around before leaving, “And at NASI, we’re all about protecting the people,” I add with a grin as I leave the room, ignoring the shouts and swears from him and the wide eyes from the rest of the band mates.
“But just so you know Gerard,” I yell over my shoulder, “some Jersey kid sure as hell won’t shut me up.”