By Joe Elliott
Potpouri for $300, Alex
The semester has ended, and for the time being, so has my brief but enjoyable writing career. I apologize to those of you whose fan mail I have yet to respond to. Being a male, I am forced to prioritize responses to mail as follows: female triplets, female twins, females, dogs, some cats, males, and then the other cats. The large number of dogs who have responded have kept all of the males on hold, and I promise to get to you during the break.
Throughout the two months or so I have been writing for The Cardinal, I have been accused of racism, simple-mindedness, and stupidity in general. Having provided an ample defense for myself and having received nothing more substantial than “you’re a racist,” I have come to the conclusion that logic and intelligence are not the strong points of a large portion of my adversaries. Furthermore, we are all lucky that I never unleashed some of my more daring columns into the wild for fear of what would have happened. Just to give you a taste of the madness, behold some of my stranger ideas that never made it to print:
Article 1: “Mad Lib.” Being as how it’s already 90% written, I imagine sometime next semester we’ll be seeing this marvel of verbage. It’s nothing more than the title proclaims.
Article 2: “No E’s.” The intent of this article was to be completely devoid of the letter “e.” The idea behind the article was simply to confuse people. Given the lumbering tone and strange vocabulary, I figured that people would understand that something was different about the article without being able to actually identify what it was (at least for a while). Only around one hundred words were ever written for this article; considering the difficulty of completing it, it was axed. Here’s a sample sentence: “Although I fancy only to sustain my gala of amusing columns, my mind is blank and I lack satisfactory vision to pull forth a worthy notion from my mind’s dark and brooding nooks.”
Article 3: “No article.” This blank article was intended to be a referential piece to one of John Cage’s more well-known works. It also allowed me to be incredibly lazy. This article was axed by my editor for obvious reasons.
And now, as my final column of the semester plods to an end, I would like to say thanks in as stereotypical and meaningless a way as possible to all of the people who bothered to pick up the paper and read my biweekly randomness. Thanks. Also, considering the additives inserted in every column to make them more addictive, I would like to end with the following warning from Not the Surgeon General.
Not the Surgeon General’s Warning: “As we regrettably must part ways for the next several weeks, I know that your intense desire to read a Joe Elliott column will probably surface in the form of heated arguments with your parents and knife fights with your siblings and/or Christmas presents. If you should encounter any of the preceding over the break, I urge you not to panic, as you are simply showing advanced signs of incredibly good taste. A simple remedy will be to check the online archives at www.louisvillecardinal.com. If, however, your addiction is not properly sated by this method, please do NOT drive back to campus searching for a new copy of The Cardinal. Your efforts will be in vain, and I will take no responsibility for your untimely demise on the road. The only things I can responsibly suggest as Not the Surgeon General are a strait jacket, nicotine, and a White Russian (thank you, The Dude).
