I’m a new student here so I only got to read this years first issue where you printed the letter from the Stony Brook Patriot. What is the animosity between the press and the patriot? How did all these bad feelings start up?
-Ralph Wiggim
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Dearest Ralph Wiggim,
Animosity between the Patriot and Press dates back thousands of centuries. It all began in the Before Time, an epoch of molten rock, dino-fuck, and curdling cheese. The twin founders of the Press and Patriot, Bob and Mitch, split from the herpetic sore of the great titan Chronos in the cosmos. Bob, the patron saint of the Press, was a stock broker who in his spare time hunted sea elephants. Mitch enjoyed frying turds. One fine Sunday morning in 1986, the twins gathered to build a tree fort. Mitch, an ardent supporter of William Howard Taft, believed only in the Muslim doctrine of cardboard tree forts. Bob’s Scientology background prevented such use of cardboard. A disagreement broke out. In the ensuing “tongue kissing” war, Bob and Mitch suffered lacerated livers. Both were sure they would die. However, a miracle occurred, a miracle that members of Stony Brook University still refer to today as “The Great Rape of ’88.”
Though it occurred in 1994 and not 1988, the assonance was too temping to pass up. A great comet fell from the broiling ether. In it came a black man named Barry Sanders, not to be confused with NFL great Barry Sanders. He was a surgeon, famed throughout Jupiter as a liver repairman/rapist. Rape is actually legal on gaseous planets. Barry Sanders came with a message. He boomed over the land:
Young Bob, Young Mitch, you both are ugly and stupid. Do something useful with your time. And I don’t mean masturbating. Write….
“Write what?” Bob ejaculated.
“Yes, please tell us,” Mitch ejaculated.
STOP EJACULATING AND LISTEN! You, Bob, are an anti-social fetus-head. You look like a fetus. You will never get laid. And you, Mitch, are an uptight, cock-gobbling, sociopath. No one likes you or the pogs you play with. Each of you must found a newspaper. In it you will write many scribble-scrabbles. Some people will read them. Eventually you will both make newspapers that will hate each other because you are both insecure, lazy, fuck-ups. I hate you all and I hope your deaths are painful. Good night.
Bob and Mitch sat beneath a tree and understood their destinies. Bob ran to a gas station to print the first issue of the Press on beaver hide. Mitch ran to the nearest toxic waste dump to turn a glowing blue shard of feces into the first issue of the Patriot. Both newspapers were commercial failures. In time, as the newspapers became legible, tensions grew. Bob and Mitch liked different hamburger condiments. They tried to sepukku each other. The twins finally succumbed to colon cancer in early 2004. Since then, their remains have rotted beneath the great Math Tower.
So you see, the answer to your question is simple. The Press and Patriot hate each other because of history. We’re glad to have helped you.
–The Press
