Like We Care (34 page)

“Oh,” she said with appropriate concern. “Well, you know. . . It’s like a blooper kind of thing. It’s just an accident that happened. ScroatM has a sense of humor about himself. He could have some fun with this.”

“Ain’t nothing funny about any of this,” one of the Tok$ic guys said through clenched teeth.

“Oh. Well, I’m not sure how I—”

“Shut up,” Viceroy snapped.

He turned again to his computer, and Annie’s heart sank. Because there on the screen was Joel Kasten—
her
Joel Kasten—interacting with ScroatM backstage at the awards show. And getting himself eviscerated by the cruel and seemingly unbalanced rap singer. It was gruesome to watch, a truly rare glimpse into the toxic soul of a superstar.

This was on the internet, too.

“You brought that kid here,” Hutch said tersely. This was going to be good.

“Well, I. . .
We. . .
” she turned to Viceroy, who stared back with shark’s eyes. He would not be taking the fall for any of this.

“You were in charge of keeping an eye on him,” Hutch scolded.

Annie was in full panic. She looked from face to face, realizing that she was in desperate, desperate trouble.

“This is running on his website?”

“It’s the
only
thing running on his website,” Viceroy said. “He’s pulled down all other content, and he’s got sister sites all over the country feeding into this one.

“
It’s fucking everywhere!
”

Annie gulped. “What can I—?”

Viceroy slammed his phone down in front of her and jabbed open the speaker, so that the dial tone sliced through the strain in the room.

“You give him a handjob if you have to, but you had better take care of this.”

All eyes singed her as she clumsily punched in Todd’s number. It rang several times before he picked up.

“Hello?”

“Todd?” she began, speaking slowly and firmly. “You have to take it down. You have to take it down right now.”

He was obviously anticipating this call.

“We will. On Saturday.”

Hutch lurched toward the phone, needing to beat somebody up in front of Viceroy in order to come out of this with a win.

Annie glared and thrust out a hand to silence him. She knew Todd needed to be handled.

“Saturday? Why Saturday?” she asked calmly.

“We’ve got something else going up Saturday. It’s the best thing yet.”

Annie shivered at the thought. The others in the room saw her reaction and grew even more unsettled. “You’ll never get that far,” she said, hoping the concern was coming through her voice. “Someone will figure out how to shut you down.”

“Ira says try and find him,” he said casually. “We’re going to start teasing this new thing this afternoon. Keep watching.”

Hutch sneered into the speaker phone.

“Look, kid, you are in some serious shit here. That video was obtained illegally. ‘Dingleberry’ is copyrighted material. You keep circulating that shit and I
promise
you that the entire recording industry is going to want to see your ass thrown in jail!”

“Who is this?”

“This is Hutch Posner, President of Programming at R
²
Rev.”

“Oh,” Todd said meekly. Then: “Hey, could I request a video?”

Hutch absorbed the outrage and opened his mouth to fire back, but Todd hung up. The dial tone filled the room again as Annie smiled sweatily.

“I’m really pretty,” she wanted to say. “Could I cash that in here?”

The illicit, bootlegged quality of the ScroatM videos, combined with the fact that they were available freely on the net, made them perfect fare for tabloid television and hot-for-a-topic cable news shows. With ScroatM awareness already reaching its peak with the
Freakal Matter
marketing push, it made perfect sense to further sate the public’s interest in all things Scroat by playing up this embarrassing, unflattering portrait of the controversial singer. Those who loved him would tune in out of curiosity, while those who despised him could enjoy the satisfaction of seeing him exposed. It was no-lose programming.

Here and there, there were actually some thoughtful discussions of what the second clip—the Joel clip—revealed about the dark truths of the relationship between fans and celebrities. For the most part, though, it was just disposable, voyeuristic nonsense, a couple days’ worth of diversion until something new came along.

But not for young CD-buyers. True, many of ScroatM’s earlier fans were already planning to take a pass on
Freakal Matter
, but the core, his marketers hoped, would not succumb to the vague sense that the rapper had crossed that unforgiving line into yesterday—at least not until after they bought the new CD. Everything they had originally cherished about Scroat, everything he attacked on the new album—civility, authority, those who can’t fight back—teenagers hated them, too, and vastly more than when his first album came out. There was still a kind of synergy to be exploited.

But now, here he was, caught on tape attacking
them
. Joel had become a kind of stand-in for the kids following his adventures. Seeing him ripped apart by the rapper, it wasn’t hard to put themselves in his place. Teenagers are an easily aggrieved bunch, and easily betrayed. They can spray their contempt in all directions without a thought to the effect it has on others. But let someone mistreat
them
, and their collective soul fairly aches at the injustice. It
is
a big, mean world, just like their years of sulking had told them.

From R
²
Rev, they had been inundated with countless images of ScroatM in repose, in his mansions in Miami Beach, and Manhattan, and L.A., tooling around in limos and private jets, his flesh pierced with diamonds and gold, starlets on his arm. They knew
they
had made all that possible. They had believed in this guy, even when he started covering his ass by saying that he didn’t actually mean anything he rapped. It was a
character
he was playing, he said. It was just pretend.

But that was no character on the Joel tape. That was a real guy, caught raw with no handlers or producers or media to explain away the loathsomeness. ScroatM
hated
Joel. And Joel was them.

And hate has a way of coming back on you.

http://www.notbuyingthisshit.com

Lube Up, Gomer!


Here’s the deal: We fucked up.


Instead of protesting one thing we protested everything, and no way we’re going to win that way.


Here’s how we DO win:


ScroatM’s new CD goes on sale this Tuesday. DON’T BUY IT!!! If you
have
to have it, buy it next week. Or even better, find it on the internet for free. It’ll be there if you know where to look. (Hint, hint)


But DO NOT buy it on Tuesday. There are fuckers with calculators who will be standing by to see how many of us are dumb enough to buy that piece of shit. The first week is killer for them. If we stay home, they are fucked and WE WIN ha ha ha ha ha


ScroatM is an asshole and a fraud (
link to video
). If you give him any more of your money, you are an idiot and a tool.


WE CAN DO THIS!!! Just don’t buy ScroatM’s new CD on Tuesday— how fucking hard is that? Keep your money in your pocket and the asswipes who have been fucking with us forever will know we have the power and they had better cut the shit out. OR ELSE!!


Okay? Make something of yourselves, for Christ’s sake.


Signed,


Joel Kasten


T
he new content went up early Saturday night. The hype leading up to its debut had breathlessly promised something outrageous, so some of the tens of thousands of kids seduced into checking in were bitterly disappointed by the single page of text. Ira had lobbied for some kind of aesthetic flash, but Todd knew that simplicity was the answer here. This generation had been sand-blasted with meaningless noise and imagery every conscious hour of its day. It was a gamble, but Todd felt the starkness of the new manifesto would appear sufficiently urgent. Word had to spread quickly. There was no time for distraction.

And it wasn’t like he was ordering them to take to the streets or anything. For the plan to work, all Todd needed was for America’s youth to do absolutely nothing—something at which they were particularly gifted. But the message sent at the cash registers, if this one specific product was left on the shelves despite millions of dollars being spent to ensure its sale, would be huge.

“It’s like a chain,” Todd kept saying. “We’re on one end, and they’re on the other. If we yank, they’ll feel it.”

The boycott did not need to be total, and in fact Todd planned to be first in line on Tuesday to buy the CD—so that he could hand it to Ira, who would then digitize it and send it out to the world for free.

Sales projections for the first week were easy to find. The morons from Tok$ic had been hyping grossly inflated numbers for weeks, while trade publications were offering more modest predictions. But the benchmark was there: Any number that came in dramatically lower than what was expected would be a dire warning to the industries that relied upon the lumpish compliance of its young consumers.

And if ScroatM got wrecked in the process? “That’s the beauty part,” as Joel would say.

“T
his is wack!” ScroatM bitched, stomping his foot so hard his baggies nearly slid off his narrow hips. “I mean, what the fuck, Artie? What the fuck?”

“The fuck do I know?” shot back Artie Pistone, Scroat’s manager. They were in his high-toned Manhattan office, which featured Scroat’s gold and platinum albums from his first CD. “Nobody wants to buy the fuckin’ record. What am I supposed to do about it?”

The first day’s figures had been horrific—barely half of what had been projected. All across America, kids were staying home, or coming out to the stores specifically to make their sentiments known. Pennies were lobbed here and there. At a Target store in Tucson, some kid took bits of chewing gum and methodically cemented one single cent across Scroat’s face on every unsold CD. In a FedEx package traveling somewhere between Barstow, CA, and the headquarters of Tok$ic Records, fifteen-year-old Joe Muniz had placed the busted pieces of
Right White Nigga
along with the CD packaging, with which young Mr. Muniz had apparently wiped his ass.

Dissing ScroatM had become the thing to do. It might only last a few days. But that would be enough.

“The fuck does the label say?” the artist asked anxiously.

“They’re bringin’ in hula girls for the big fuckin’ party. The fuck do you think they’re gonna say?” Pistone growled. “What they’re
not
gonna say is that they’re movin’ on, which is exactly what they’re lookin’ to do. Mark my fuckin’ words.”

“Moving on?” ScroatM sounded small and wounded.

“Cuttin’ you loose. You’re over, far as they’re concerned. Who needs this shit? You’ve got every kid in America wantin’ to tear you a new asshole.”

“But. . .” Scroat said sadly. “I was just satirizing—”

“Will you shut the fuck up? Just lemme think here. Lemme think.”

Pistone struck a pose approximating deep thought as ScroatM got revved up, pacing around the office feverishly. He had spent most of the day, the day
Freakal Matter
had gone out into the world, ingesting whatever he could get his hands on to take his mind off his troubles. Now the toxins were manifesting themselves in jarring bursts of manic highs and desperate lows.

“I’m gonna kick that kid’s ass, that’s what I’m gonna do,” he said darkly. He drew up to the plate glass window overlooking the city and drove a fist into it full force. It trembled but did not break.

“Fuckin’ little hillbilly shit, fuckin’ with my thing.” He started bouncing on the balls of his feet, throwing punches. “
Bam!
How you like that, Gomer?
Bam!
I’ll punch you dead and fuck your mama, whatja think of that, little bad-ass hillbilly motherfucker?”

Pistone wearily ignored this as he tried to think.

Finally, after much struggle, a brainstorm arrived. He mulled it over for a couple minutes, watching it play out in his mind. Then he bent his fat frame toward the intercom on his desk.

“Get me DeNunzio at Tok$ic.”

“Fuck, yeah,” ScroatM slurred. “Bring them on, too. I’ll kick their fat fucking Mafia asses clear back to Italy.”

Pistone lifted himself out of his chair and came around his desk, seemingly willing to spar with his distraught client.

“You want some, too, fat ass?” Scroat leered playfully, throwing more air punches. “Let’s go. I’ll take you—”

Pistone calmly placed a meaty thumb and forefinger on the pressure point at the base of ScroatM’s skull. If he pinched hard, the singer would pass out. If he pinched harder, he’d die. So he had this to work with.

ScroatM immediately started flailing and whining like a little girl. “Ow. C’mon, Artie. Quit it. I mean it, man. Please? Ow!”