Erin Ptah (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ptahrrific) wrote2008-06-06 11:58 pm
ptahrrific) wrote2008-06-06 11:58 pm
Entry tags:
Fake News: Keeping Up Appearances
Title: Keeping Up Appearances (aka The LSD Story)
Rating: PG-13
Series: TDS/TCR
Warnings: Drug usage, extreme strangeness.
Disclaimer: Two.
For the Report characters: They and their universe are property of Stephen Colbert, the other Report writers, and of course Viacom. Not mine. Sue me not, please.
And for the real people, the poem:
Please, make no mistake:
these people aren't fake,
but what's said here is no more than fiction.
It only was writ
because we like their wit
and wisecracks, and pull-squints, and diction.
We don't mean to quibble,
but this can't be libel;
it's never implied to be real.
No disrespect's meant;
if you disapprove, then,
the back button's right up there. Deal.
Summary: After an accidental LSD trip gives Stephen unexpected insight into how broken his mind is, he tries in vain to pick up the pieces. Which Stephen am I?
(The interspersed quotations are from Sylvia Fraser's In My Father's House. The author is a Canadian female incest survivor who grew up in the '50s, while "Stephen" is none of these things; still, the psychological tenor is the one I want.)
We are who we pretend to be; so we must be very careful who we pretend to be.
--Kurt Vonnegut
Keeping Up Appearances
"Did you know about this?"
Jon didn't look up from his crossword. "Stephen, if this is about the new Doritos campaign that started without you, I assure you, I—"
"I don't care about the Doritos, Jon!"
"Something pretty big must have happened, if it's distracting you from your corporate sponsorship," quipped Jon. "What's on your mind?"
And then he saw the look on Stephen's face.
It was angry, of course. There was always anger, or at the very least tension, shaping its features: drawing that mouth tight, flaring those nostrils, carving lines into that forehead. But now it had a two-dimensional quality about it, as though the anger were a cardboard mask, and behind it was—
—nothing.
Stephen looked hollow.
"Did you know," he repeated through clenched jaw, "that I'm not real?"
I say these pictures are of me but they are not. They are of the "glamor girl" I glued together out of tinselly bits cut from movie magazines--Marilyn Monroe's sultry eyes, Rita Hayworth's mouth, Lana Turner's sweater....I invented her to fool myself as well as the world.
Jon put down his pencil, sat up a little straighter. "What are you talking about? Of course you're real."
The pundit shook his head. "I'm not. I mean, I exist, but I'm not...I...." He groped for words, found none. He'd never heard of something like this before, much less tried to explain it himself.
"You're really worried about this, aren't you?"
"No!" The pundit strode forward, planted his hands on the surface of the desk. "I'm not! Don't you see? I don't get worried. I don't get scared. I can't."
Patting one of the elegantly manicured hands with his own rather scruffier appendage, Jon said carefully, "Stephen, it's okay to be scared."
"Is it okay to not?"
The job of my glamor-puppet, whom even then I called Appearances, was to demonstrate that everything was super keen while I was most despairing.
"Sorry, what?"
"Is it okay to not be scared? Ever?"
"...you mean, to be brave?" asked Jon slowly. For someone using a third-grade vocabulary, Stephen was making surprisingly little sense.
"No! I mean, to be happy and carefree and optimistic even when something really serious happens. Like, if you nearly crash a car, or pick a fight with Chuck Norris."
"You picked a fight with Chuck Norris?!"
"No! But if I did, shouldn't I be scared?"
"Terrified! You'd be crazy not to be!"
Stephen yanked his hand away from Jon's, stuck it in his pocket. "That's what I thought."
For several years she won the trophies and garnered the votes, but she had an inherent flaw. She did not react to circumstances out of real emotion. She was programmed like a computer and, like a computer, she played to rule.
"I didn't mean...."
"Of course you did."
"It's just an expression, Stephen. You're not crazy. You can be a little reckless, but you do get scared. I've seen it."
"That wasn't me." The pundit sighed, resigned. "You really don't get it. At least I know you weren't keeping it from me."
"Keeping...?"
"That I'm not real."
"Why do you keep saying that? Pull up a chair, sit for a while. Is something else going on here? What brought this on?"
The pundit took a seat across from Jon. "One of the interns slipped me some LSD...."
"So you're having an existential crisis because you had a bad trip?"
"Are you going to listen, or not?"
"Sorry. Shutting up now."
Once this puppet was my slave, made up of shiny bits and pieces of what other people admired. She performed in my name. I held the strings. She protected me.
"Did you ever look at that set, Jon? I mean, really look at it?"
"Uh, maybe."
"My name's all over it. Everywhere! In the lights, in the decorations, in the furniture."
"Yeah, I've seen that."
"It's not just symbolic. I am the show. I'm—I'm a collage of all the traits needed to host it. Bill O'Reilly's yelling. Joe Scarborough's hair. Brian Williams' gravitas. Anderson Cooper's shininess. I'm not a person, Jon; I'm a cutout to fit in a host-shaped hole. La programme, c'est moi."
"You have other interests, though," offered Jon.
"I don't. Not really. Unless it's something to do with the show—something that will get me attention, recognition, validation—it doesn't matter to me. I've been trying, really trying, but I can't seem to make myself care."
"What about your golf game?" teased Jon.
"It impresses the other rich white men at the country club."
"Your kids, then."
"I'm against children. You know that."
"Yeah, yeah, you say that all the time, but you don't really mean it. You love your own kids."
"I should, shouldn't I?" said Stephen quietly.
Now she is a caricature of what I want her to be.
"Stephen...." Jon leaned forward to put a hand on the pundit's shoulder. "You do. I know you do, deep down. Maybe they're trouble sometimes, maybe they get on your nerves, but—"
"There's no deep down, Jon!" exclaimed the pundit. "Not for me! I've been reaching, and there's nothing there! All I have is anger—about them, about you—"
Jon blinked. "You're angry at me?"
"Of course, Jon. I hate you."
Stop! Stop this minute!
I can't! Now the split between what I am and what I pretend to be is so wide I can barely straddle the gap. I see myself dancing across the stage like a stringless marionette, nodding, smiling, joking, laughing with red lips.
Jon jumped in spite of himself, yanking his hand away. "What?"
"I've said it on camera before, haven't I? You're the opposite of everything I stand for, and you're my main competition for the spotlight. Of course I hate you."
"Stephen, you—you don't have to say that here," stammered Jon. "It's just us. You don't have to keep up appearances."
"I'm not! I am appearances!"
He looked a little desperate now.
"And you know something, Jon? I'm starting to think I only get angry because I'm supposed to be angry at people like you, or because it's good for the show. That even that isn't real. That maybe I wouldn't be happy to see you die in a fire, but only because I wouldn't feel anything at all! And I don't know which is worse! I—"
He broke off as Jon rose, and went very still.
"I think you should leave," said Jon.
I always knew--painfully--what she was up to because I always had to pick up the pieces from her disasters.
He stood outside the door of Jon's office, shaking.
I've lost him.
He swayed suddenly, collapsed against the wall.
"Shake it off, Col-bert," muttered the pundit under his breath.
He couldn't, of course. The pundit could survive on mass public adoration alone; but Col-bert needed real human connection, craved it, fell apart without it.
Which Stephen am I?
The question flashed through the pundit's mind. Col-bert prayed that, this time, he would just let it go.
As I tumble down a brambly slope, every bone and sinew shaken by the impact, uncertain as to whether I am going to live or die, I am struck by a blinding flash of the obvious: I am not angry. I never was. I am terrified....
There was a revelation at the edge of the pundit's awareness, like a word on the tip of your tongue, out of reach but only just, so that if you strained just a little bit more you could—
He stopped.
He had been thinking.
No wonder he had been confused, worried, agitated. That was what thinking did to a man. It made him start doubting that he was doing the right thing.
It was probably to blame in some way for the tear that had just rolled down his cheek, too.
The pundit pulled off his glasses and dabbed at his eyes with his sleeve, more annoyed than anything else. This wasn't his sadness.
He could shake it off.
So he wasn't real. So what? The crowds still cheered. As long as he had their adoration, he was fine. And he saw no reason why they couldn't adore him forever.
He replaced his glasses smartly on the bridge of his nose, and walked out the door.
Moving on.
Rating: PG-13
Series: TDS/TCR
Warnings: Drug usage, extreme strangeness.
Disclaimer: Two.
For the Report characters: They and their universe are property of Stephen Colbert, the other Report writers, and of course Viacom. Not mine. Sue me not, please.
And for the real people, the poem:
Please, make no mistake:
these people aren't fake,
but what's said here is no more than fiction.
It only was writ
because we like their wit
and wisecracks, and pull-squints, and diction.
We don't mean to quibble,
but this can't be libel;
it's never implied to be real.
No disrespect's meant;
if you disapprove, then,
the back button's right up there. Deal.
Summary: After an accidental LSD trip gives Stephen unexpected insight into how broken his mind is, he tries in vain to pick up the pieces. Which Stephen am I?
(The interspersed quotations are from Sylvia Fraser's In My Father's House. The author is a Canadian female incest survivor who grew up in the '50s, while "Stephen" is none of these things; still, the psychological tenor is the one I want.)
We are who we pretend to be; so we must be very careful who we pretend to be.
--Kurt Vonnegut
Keeping Up Appearances
"Did you know about this?"
Jon didn't look up from his crossword. "Stephen, if this is about the new Doritos campaign that started without you, I assure you, I—"
"I don't care about the Doritos, Jon!"
"Something pretty big must have happened, if it's distracting you from your corporate sponsorship," quipped Jon. "What's on your mind?"
And then he saw the look on Stephen's face.
It was angry, of course. There was always anger, or at the very least tension, shaping its features: drawing that mouth tight, flaring those nostrils, carving lines into that forehead. But now it had a two-dimensional quality about it, as though the anger were a cardboard mask, and behind it was—
—nothing.
Stephen looked hollow.
"Did you know," he repeated through clenched jaw, "that I'm not real?"
I say these pictures are of me but they are not. They are of the "glamor girl" I glued together out of tinselly bits cut from movie magazines--Marilyn Monroe's sultry eyes, Rita Hayworth's mouth, Lana Turner's sweater....I invented her to fool myself as well as the world.
Jon put down his pencil, sat up a little straighter. "What are you talking about? Of course you're real."
The pundit shook his head. "I'm not. I mean, I exist, but I'm not...I...." He groped for words, found none. He'd never heard of something like this before, much less tried to explain it himself.
"You're really worried about this, aren't you?"
"No!" The pundit strode forward, planted his hands on the surface of the desk. "I'm not! Don't you see? I don't get worried. I don't get scared. I can't."
Patting one of the elegantly manicured hands with his own rather scruffier appendage, Jon said carefully, "Stephen, it's okay to be scared."
"Is it okay to not?"
The job of my glamor-puppet, whom even then I called Appearances, was to demonstrate that everything was super keen while I was most despairing.
"Sorry, what?"
"Is it okay to not be scared? Ever?"
"...you mean, to be brave?" asked Jon slowly. For someone using a third-grade vocabulary, Stephen was making surprisingly little sense.
"No! I mean, to be happy and carefree and optimistic even when something really serious happens. Like, if you nearly crash a car, or pick a fight with Chuck Norris."
"You picked a fight with Chuck Norris?!"
"No! But if I did, shouldn't I be scared?"
"Terrified! You'd be crazy not to be!"
Stephen yanked his hand away from Jon's, stuck it in his pocket. "That's what I thought."
For several years she won the trophies and garnered the votes, but she had an inherent flaw. She did not react to circumstances out of real emotion. She was programmed like a computer and, like a computer, she played to rule.
"I didn't mean...."
"Of course you did."
"It's just an expression, Stephen. You're not crazy. You can be a little reckless, but you do get scared. I've seen it."
"That wasn't me." The pundit sighed, resigned. "You really don't get it. At least I know you weren't keeping it from me."
"Keeping...?"
"That I'm not real."
"Why do you keep saying that? Pull up a chair, sit for a while. Is something else going on here? What brought this on?"
The pundit took a seat across from Jon. "One of the interns slipped me some LSD...."
"So you're having an existential crisis because you had a bad trip?"
"Are you going to listen, or not?"
"Sorry. Shutting up now."
Once this puppet was my slave, made up of shiny bits and pieces of what other people admired. She performed in my name. I held the strings. She protected me.
"Did you ever look at that set, Jon? I mean, really look at it?"
"Uh, maybe."
"My name's all over it. Everywhere! In the lights, in the decorations, in the furniture."
"Yeah, I've seen that."
"It's not just symbolic. I am the show. I'm—I'm a collage of all the traits needed to host it. Bill O'Reilly's yelling. Joe Scarborough's hair. Brian Williams' gravitas. Anderson Cooper's shininess. I'm not a person, Jon; I'm a cutout to fit in a host-shaped hole. La programme, c'est moi."
"You have other interests, though," offered Jon.
"I don't. Not really. Unless it's something to do with the show—something that will get me attention, recognition, validation—it doesn't matter to me. I've been trying, really trying, but I can't seem to make myself care."
"What about your golf game?" teased Jon.
"It impresses the other rich white men at the country club."
"Your kids, then."
"I'm against children. You know that."
"Yeah, yeah, you say that all the time, but you don't really mean it. You love your own kids."
"I should, shouldn't I?" said Stephen quietly.
Now she is a caricature of what I want her to be.
"Stephen...." Jon leaned forward to put a hand on the pundit's shoulder. "You do. I know you do, deep down. Maybe they're trouble sometimes, maybe they get on your nerves, but—"
"There's no deep down, Jon!" exclaimed the pundit. "Not for me! I've been reaching, and there's nothing there! All I have is anger—about them, about you—"
Jon blinked. "You're angry at me?"
"Of course, Jon. I hate you."
Stop! Stop this minute!
I can't! Now the split between what I am and what I pretend to be is so wide I can barely straddle the gap. I see myself dancing across the stage like a stringless marionette, nodding, smiling, joking, laughing with red lips.
Jon jumped in spite of himself, yanking his hand away. "What?"
"I've said it on camera before, haven't I? You're the opposite of everything I stand for, and you're my main competition for the spotlight. Of course I hate you."
"Stephen, you—you don't have to say that here," stammered Jon. "It's just us. You don't have to keep up appearances."
"I'm not! I am appearances!"
He looked a little desperate now.
"And you know something, Jon? I'm starting to think I only get angry because I'm supposed to be angry at people like you, or because it's good for the show. That even that isn't real. That maybe I wouldn't be happy to see you die in a fire, but only because I wouldn't feel anything at all! And I don't know which is worse! I—"
He broke off as Jon rose, and went very still.
"I think you should leave," said Jon.
I always knew--painfully--what she was up to because I always had to pick up the pieces from her disasters.
He stood outside the door of Jon's office, shaking.
I've lost him.
He swayed suddenly, collapsed against the wall.
"Shake it off, Col-bert," muttered the pundit under his breath.
He couldn't, of course. The pundit could survive on mass public adoration alone; but Col-bert needed real human connection, craved it, fell apart without it.
Which Stephen am I?
The question flashed through the pundit's mind. Col-bert prayed that, this time, he would just let it go.
As I tumble down a brambly slope, every bone and sinew shaken by the impact, uncertain as to whether I am going to live or die, I am struck by a blinding flash of the obvious: I am not angry. I never was. I am terrified....
There was a revelation at the edge of the pundit's awareness, like a word on the tip of your tongue, out of reach but only just, so that if you strained just a little bit more you could—
He stopped.
He had been thinking.
No wonder he had been confused, worried, agitated. That was what thinking did to a man. It made him start doubting that he was doing the right thing.
It was probably to blame in some way for the tear that had just rolled down his cheek, too.
The pundit pulled off his glasses and dabbed at his eyes with his sleeve, more annoyed than anything else. This wasn't his sadness.
He could shake it off.
So he wasn't real. So what? The crowds still cheered. As long as he had their adoration, he was fine. And he saw no reason why they couldn't adore him forever.
He replaced his glasses smartly on the bridge of his nose, and walked out the door.
Moving on.
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Terrifying.
I love it.
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and I mean Stephen and Jon's confusion... not mine.. *L*
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As usual, the pundit ultimately decides to avoid thinking about it, and thus continues to be unaware of Col-bert's underlying misery.
Although Stephen's system seems to work well (the pundit can handle everything life throws at him, because he isn't held back by Col-bert's emotions), the pundit's inability to care ends up jeopardizing things that could have relieved Col-bert's turmoil (such as his relationship with Jon). It'll break down eventually. He's in denial, of course.
Does that help? It's weird, I know. None of the characters get it.
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Happy to help ^_^
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(By the way, I think there's an issue with your links on JSX; neither this nor the latest "Drawing the Line" works.)
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(Fixed, thanks!)
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Awesome, and I like the interspersed quotes!
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Thanks!
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That was just...ow. I'm a little bit at a loss for words but ouch. That...gah. I want to fix Stephen so badly right now!
Excellent work.
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So glad you like it ^_^
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...you made me cry. seriously, out loud, "are you okay, what did you just read?"-asking crying.
...poor Stephen....
(my lips have gone all wibbly with empathetic sadness)
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Thank you ♥