The Tribune’s In-Doggerel Address

[Note From the Editors: This is the transcript of the Tribune of Medium’s inaugural address after being sworn in as “Tribune of Medium” for the tenth time. We can assure you that there were no irregularities in the election because there was no election. Gutbloom held a paper aloft during the annual “Beer Hall Putsch and Polka Night” held at Dorsey’s Tavern in November and shouted, ‘You know who appoints the Tribune? The Tribune! I am he as you are he as you are me And we are all together”… then he waited a beat before saying… “Goo goo g’joob.” Nobody laughed and the room fell silent. He repeated “Goo goo g’joob,” then said, “Fuck you all, anyway.”

The rest of his remarks were as follows.]

Dear Fellow Mediumans, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, Arts Council, OTB Officials, and Gamama Ovaltine, I stand before you today humbled by victory and burdened by the ponderous responsibility of, once again, taking on the mantle of Tribune.

Thank you for the faith you would have placed in me if you had had a voice in placing faith in me. It is a great honor.

It is time, in this, our great Bloggosphere, to put aside our partisan differences… because… let’s face it… the differences between Furry Mannerpunk and Speculative Ergodic Slash Fic are really not that much… it’s all just bad writing after all… yes, put aside our differences and unite ourselves in the conviction that the Chinese and Australians just aren’t reading and clapping for our writing as much as they ought to be.

Take heart, friends, for a brighter day is not around the corner… this is not the Hall of Presidents at Disneyworld… the brighter day is here! We are going to build back better! To that point, I am happy to announce that after much political pressure, strong-arm tactics, and old fashioned American graft, my office has bullied Medium into rolling out threaded comments. Now, you may wonder why I would take credit for Medium announcing the implementation of 1990s technology. The answer is: “credit is credit, man. If you know anything about leverage you know that I can bundle that shit into a default swap and sell it to retirees in a package of subordinated debentures. That’s the problem with you n00bs, you don’t understand ‘finance’.”

[At this point the Tribune seemed to lose his train of thought. He looked in his jacket pocket and pretended to fiddle with some papers. The entire crowd could see that his was vaping into his sleeve.]

Build Back Better. This is not the time for irony or cynicism. This is the time for action! [He vaped again].

We are done with lies. We have charged across the battlefield of deception and before us fibs and fabrications dissipate like smoke, yielding to the golden rays of honesty and truth. We stand on the green field of objective fact and reach for the stars of understanding… while at the same time carefully avoiding all of the mysterious and complicated questions that lead to “faith”, “belief”, and eventually “dumb ideas” like you shouldn’t boil a kid goat in its mother’s milk when EVERYONE knows that that is the BEST WAY… maybe the only way… to eat baby goat.

[The Tribune tried to vape behind his jacket again, but something went wrong. He made a number of wild hand gestures to his flunky PeeWee who was on the far end of the stage. PeeWee didn’t seem to understand. Finally the Tribune said, out loud:]

PeeWee, I need another cartridge. Can you go down to the Holdredge’s Candy Store and get me a ten pack of the Succotash Flavored vape cans?

[He continued] In the spirit of greater truth, I will lay some “Truth Bombs” on you. Maybe it will get the truth train rolling, eh? We can try.

• I have often said that betting the 1–2–8 trifecta at the dog track is a sure-thing. The truth is: I can’t find a dog track anymore.
• When I say, “It might have happened and it could be true,” there is very little chance that any of it is true. In fact, most of it is probably the opposite of true.
• When I say “Beauty is truth and truth beauty” it’s just another way of me saying “Thank you for taking off your clothes.”
• I have no intention of finishing The Most Regressive Story Ever Told
• I’m not here to write. I’m here to make comma splices, misuse ellipses, and alternate between run-on and fragment sentences. The writing is what holds those errors together.
• While I often make fun of librarians, school-marms, and copy editors, the truth is; I don’t hate cats.
• I never finished Crime and Punishment or The Scarlet Letter even though I often claim that I have read both.
• While I read A LOT of Mad Super Special #20 (The Don Martin Issue) I skipped plenty of it, but that didn’t stop me from declaring it “The Best” Super Special of all time.
• I don’t have a bucket list, but making one is on my bucket list.
• Medium needs more listicles, but not this one.
• I should have stopped five items ago.
• This item is unadulterated pathology.

Since I’ve broken the “listicle ice”, I want to list some of the “Executive Orders” that I will be signing right after this ceremony with the intention of undoing the barbaric initiatives of my completely corrupt predecessor. [We would remind the reader that Gutbloom is the incumbent, so he was his own predecessor — The Eds]

Today I will sign an order:

• To make everyone who was 13, 12 and everyone who is 5, 6
• Change the name of the Month of August to “Dogust”
• Fill the Keystone Pipeline with beer, so that the people in the refineries of the Gulf Coast can get drunk on Labatts and Molsen.
• On behalf of Medium, rejoin the “Society for the Ethical Representation of Monera in Speculative Fiction and Fantasy” and pay our dues
• Declare May the 4th a national holiday
• Reinstate the GAMU program, which will make the Gawker Refugees full Mediumans

Last, I promised some doggerel. What’s a blog without a little bad poetry? I tried to get a college kid to read it for me, because I’m sure you would rather hear it from someone with smooth skin and a clear voice unsullied by smoking, but there were no takers, so here goes:

The Mound We Sit On

The Medium mound that we sit on Is the digital hill we can shit on While a poet with heart Mends a nation apart We beg for some change on Patreon

OK, ok. I know it sucks. You don’t have to tell me. It doesn’t help that a kid in a yellow coat stood up in the darkness and reminded us that art can save. She pointed a way toward the light.

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty, — that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”

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