Written by Joe Krzyston
Effective next issue, David Hall, longtime editor of the Roanoke College Brackety-Ack, will be fired from the paper for reasons related to gross incompetence. Sources close to the disgraced editor say the move has been a long time coming, and indeed some on the staff of the paper are surprised that the conclusion took this long to reach.
“This probably should have happened a long time ago” opined section editor Emma Grosskopf, who is slated to take over as editor next semester. “I mean, it was actually like the paper just ran itself for a full year, which is actually sort of incredible when you think about it. Seriously, it was a real testament to the skill of the writers and staff people who ran the thing while David was basically wasting everybody’s time and making life harder for us all.”
Hall, who lives in a weird house on top of a hill, is a hard man to get ahold of for an interview. Eventually, we managed to track him down and contact him for one. When we did, it became clear that he’d been living for months as a total recluse. His hair was radically different than it had been when last we’d spoken, his beard was effortlessly full, and his surroundings were in disarray. He led us to the back yard, a foreign postindustrial wasteland strewn with bottles, cans, boxes, and assorted detritus, much of which had been burnt far past any point of recognition. We sat down in decaying lawn chairs, and he offered me a can of an odd regional soda that I’d never heard of before. I declined.
“Yeah man,” said Hall, “I actually forget I still technically have that paper gig. It was cool for a little bit, but I’ve mostly been ripping on the guitar nowadays, and that can get super time consuming. Also, I’ve been reading up on postmodernism and the way we develop our societal constructs, and I’m not entirely convinced that the newspaper is real anymore, you know? I mean, think about this- you ever seen the news and the newspaper in the same place?”
Officials with the paper say they’ve got a long road ahead of them as they try to rebuild both the trust of the readers and the integrity of the paper. Of course, even without Hall in the way, massive challenges loom for the paper, chief among them being the profound dullness of life on campus.
“You know,” said Grosskopf, contemplatively, “that is something you can say about David. Whatever the hell it was he was doing, it wasn’t boring.”
**Editorial Note- We mock the ones we love the most, and David, therefore, is a prime candidate. Of course, he makes the mockery easy, but it’s always great fun. Indeed, David has made the last few years a lot more enjoyable, and as editor of the Brackety-Ack, he led the paper with vision, integrity, and a soundness of judgement uncommon among his peers. He has also provided a home to my weird, half-funny take on campus life, and for that, I’m more grateful than I’d ever let on. For that, and for so much else, the campus community and I are undoubtedly grateful. Godspeed, you beautiful fool.
