Why Kurt Cobain Rocks
And You Don't, And Never Will
by Courtney
Wednesday. I’m sitting at my computer, inexplicably surfing waves of Interweb porn, when my phone rings.
RING RING.
Just like that.
So I pick it up. “This better be good, grandma,” I say, in threatening tones.
“ . . . Is that Courtney?”
Of all the phone numbers in the world, he had to call mine. I pretend to smile brightly, then realise he can’t see me over the phone, so I let my bright smile slip into a surly scowl. “Speaking. Is that grandma?”
“No? I mean, no. This is Luke from Australia.”
“Oh yeah, yeah,” I say, making sounds like I’m riffling through a Filofax or something to find his name. “Leigh said something about you wanting to be featured on the site . . . you’re that Luke?”
There’s a pause on the other end of the line. “How many other Lukes from Australia does she know?”
“I don’t know John, we’re very busy people now that we’re internet comedy writers. Hang on, I think I hear grandma coming.”
It’s not grandma, but it comes pretty damn close.
“What are you doing?” my sister asks accusingly. “You’re not on that Sin-ternet again, are you?”
I explain again that J-List is simply one of Something Awful’s many sponsors, and that as a loyal reader of Something Awful it’s my duty to click on the link every once in a while.
“You suck and your company embarrasses me. Is that Chobits manga?”
I quickly minimise the window, and calmly explain that if no one ever clicked on the sponsors’ links Something Awful would be out of business, and that if they were out of business I would be forced to spend more time with my sister out in the Real World ™.
“Maow maow maow MAOW!” I exclaim. “Kitty love cuddles! Kitty love!”
I jiggle the cat and fluff its fur all up the wrong way, making high-pitched mee mee mee mee meee sounds. There’s cat hair flying all around the goddamn room, so my sister sneezes and leaves.
“Excuse me?”
I’d forgotten about the phone. The cat writhes around on the computer desk and purrs. I mean to say, “Sorry John, what were you saying?” but what comes out is “Kitty love! Kitty love nice cuddles! Maow MAOW!”
“Sorry John, what were you saying?” I ask. Second time’s the charm.
“Uh, my name’s Luke.”
The cat jumps off the computer desk and sits on the dining table chair. She peeks at me through the slats of the chair and I just have to laugh, cause it looks like kitty’s in jail. “Kitty in jail!” I squeal. “KITTY IN JAIL!”
“Anyway . . . I was wondering if you’d want to put me in a story or something on the Luggage Van.”
Damn. I’d completely forgotten about that.
“Oh, absolutely,” I say in a professional voice. “I remember getting a memo about that just yesterday. Let me see . . .”
I close Sexy Miss Lizzie’s site and open up a new window for the Harry Potter fanfiction I’m in the middle of reading. “Hmm, yes,” I say. “Here it is . . . oh, you want to be in a story. Right.”
“That’s exactly right!” he says, in tones of relief. “So, you think you could fit me in somewhere?”
I’m buying the Draco/Ginny interaction, but I just can’t swallow the overtones of Harry/Hermione I’m starting to see here. “Gee, I don’t know, Matthew,” I say. “I mean we’re pretty busy right now. There’s a candy update in the works, and some letters that need formatting, you know the kind of thing.”
He sighs. “It’s Luke. And that’s what Leigh said when I talked to her about it. She said she’d keep it in mind, but I don’t know. It sounded as though she was just fobbing me off, to be honest.”
I’m not sure where in that statement I tuned in, but by the end of it Matthew’s got my full attention. “Did she now?” I say slowly, turning contemplatively in my swivel chair. Honestly, sometimes Leigh was such a stupendous fool! If we ever wanted our fanbase to soar triumphantly into the double-digits, this was not at all the way to go about it. “I think you might be on to something with this ‘being in a story’ gimmick, Mark,” I say. “Won’t you step into my office?”
“Luke,” he says. I don’t know what the hell’s up with that, but I nod briskly and return his farewell.
“Luke indeed,” I say. I hang up.
Ten minutes later my saucy avatar waltzes into the meeting and greeting room of the Luggage Van’s virtual reality offices.
“John,” I say in greeting, tipping my feathered Regency headdress.
“Luke,” he says.
“Please, don’t go just yet!” I say, alarmed. I pour us some soothing virtual coffee and dim the lights in an effort to make John more comfortable. Something tells me the meeting isn’t going so well, but I can’t think why.
I take a seat on the other plush plum velvet couch. Mark doesn’t seem quite at ease. “Is Leigh coming to this meeting?” he asks.
These people and their Leigh! “Of course Leigh’s not coming,” I say. “She’s very busy.”
He sips at his fake coffee. I sip at my fake coffee. I surreptitiously search his body language for clues to his unrest, but his avatar’s baby blues give nothing away. This could be very awkward.
“I’ve had it with the flibber-flabber, dollface,” I yell angrily, shooting up out of my chair like the Wrath of God. I point an accusing finger dead at Mark. “Where’d you hide the fucking uranium? HUH??”
“What? What the hell? What are you talking about?” John exclaims in a panic. Hah, as conversation starters go, that one’s the best. It has never once failed me.
“Just kidding John,” I say, sitting down. “So, what kind of story were you thinking of being in?”
John is still looking a little crazy-eyed, if I have to be brutally honest. And I HAVE.
I try to put him at his ease. “I see from your resume that you like Rammstein, but Leigh doesn’t seem to have asked you for any specifics. Is it Dr. Rammstein you like, or Rammstein’s Monster?”
“What?”
Just then my secretary comes in with a note. “Dr. C? You got a message from Victoria. I didn’t write it down, but while she was talking I drew this cat; I’d really like your comments.”
“Oh, okay,” I say understandingly. “Have you met John? He’s a friend of Leigh’s from Albania. John, this is my private secretary, the Kurtbot 2000.”
“Luke,” he says vaguely.
“Please, we’ve barely got started!” I cry in dismay, but he’s still looking in stunned horror at the Kurtbot. Kurtbot rolls his eyes at me. He sighs impatiently.
“Yeah, well, just get back to me on the cat thing, okay?” he says. I let him go back to my office.
“I’m sorry,” I say, “where were we?”
“Was that Kurt Cobain?”
I laugh. “No, that was the Kurtbot 2000, my virtual secretary. Since the Luggage Van got so popular we’ve been able to people our offices with bots based on hot rock stars through history. Leigh keeps trying to steal my Jackbot, based on popular rock-and-rollster Jack White.”
“Oh,” he says. “What’s the Jackbot for?”
“The Jackbot’s for personal grooming and tea-making. Leigh doesn’t even DRINK tea; what a hack.”
Mark shakes his head, and I can sense that he’s trying to get back on track.
“So, about this story,” he says.
“That’s right, we were talking about your resume. Oh, it says here that you’re interested in being part of our band. You play bass?”
“Yes,” he says.
“And you once set your hand on fire,” I muse aloud. “Interesting.”
“Well, Coach,” he asks jokingly, “Think I’ll make the football team?”
I don’t really know what he means by that, so I cover it with a non-committal repeating what he’d just said in a whining baby voice, making a face and flailing my arms in the air.
John is starting to look a little affronted for some reason, so I press the call button for the Jackbot. His coffee is probably getting cold, I think. The Jackbot wanders in, to John’s delight. I assume it’s delight, anyway.
“Sweet, pretty Jackbot,” I say fondly.
“Shut up.”
I laugh. It’s no secret that I like a little back sass from my bots. “John’s coffee is getting cold. Would you mind?”
The Jackbot starts to freshen the coffee, because no matter how much they bitch and moan, no bot in the Luggage Van’s offices is able to refuse my instructions. Apart from Victoria’s Figgybot, of course, but that’s another story.
“So, you set your hand on fire,” I say professionally. “I like that in a man, and in a band member. You can play bass in our band, John.”
“Luke,” he says.
I rise, marvelling at his ability to know just when the meeting was over. I shake Mark by the hand.
“Luke,” I reply cordially.