Too long to tweet - A Story
I couldn’t pare this down to 140 and hit my two main points, so instead I’m going to lengthen it and tell you a short story. It is entirely fictional. Any similarities to real persons and events are entirely intentional, however.
Mark had a dream.
He wanted to be a superstar, but even he knew that he didn’t have the talent. Still, he was sure that he wouldn’t be the worst singer at the American Idol auditions.
He sang Dream On by Aerosmith. Randy Jackson said he was too pitchy and said no; Steven Tyler game him credit for hitting the high note and voted to push him through; Jennifer Lopez didn’t want to be the “bad guy” as the deciding vote, so he was invited to Hollywood.
On day one in Hollywood, he sang Heart’s Crazy On You. It was probably a mistake to try to make his voice sound like Ann Wilson’s. All three judges voted to send him home.
“Can I just try again? I know I can do this.”
“Naw, dog,” said Randy. “We’ve heard enough.”
“This just isn’t right for you,” added Jennifer.
“Dude, you know I love you,” Steven chimed in. “But this just isn’t your thing.”
Mark started to walk off the stage. Then he stopped dead in his tracks, and turned back to the judges.
“I didn’t want to bring this up, but I have no choice. Last night I got a phone call. There is a bomb planted somewhere in the Hollywood/Highland train station. They said that if I get cut, the bomb goes off, right under the Kodak Theater, Grauman’s Chinese Theater, and all those tourists.”
“Why wouldn’t you have mentioned something like this before,” asked Randy, as Nigel Lythgoe picked up a phone and dialed 9-1-1.
Sweat dripped down Mark’s cheek. “I didn’t want to cause a panic.”
Nigel approached the judges’ table and they huddled up. Finally, Nigel turned around and said “OK. We can’t take any chances. You’re through to the next round.”
Mark’s shoulders slumped as he exhaled. His legs became tofu underneath him, and he collapsed.
As the rest of the singers tried to process what was happening, four policemen came from stage left and handcuffed Mark, taking him away.
“Where’s the boom, Mark?” called Nigel. “The train station that we are on top of is one of the most secure in all the world. It’s under constant surveillance, and was completely inspected just ten minutes ago.”
“Ummm….it’s a miracle?” answered Mark, seeing that his scheme had backfired.
Mark had a dream. Now he has a lifetime sentence for making terrorist threats.
This is definitely not my best work, but I got too bored with the story to flesh it out any more…after all, it just started as an attempted tweet along the lines of “If I were ever on American Idol, I’d tell them that a bomb would go off if I was eliminated, then claim it was a miracle when they eliminated me anyway and nothing exploded.”]
