The year is 1990, and an impressionable youth of 17 stumbles, squinting in the late-afternoon sunlight, from the dark recesses of a Manhattan movie theatre. Outwardly, he is the same callow lad he was 105 minutes ago, but within he is transformed. Vindicated. Inspired.
The truth, he repeats to himself, is a virus.
Like any good virus, this one lies dormant for a long time. Twelve years, in fact. Its eruption, when it comes, springs full-blown from the head of one Happy Harry Hard-on, pirate DJ star of Pump Up the Volume. And thus, the cinetrix would conjecture, it was that the enigma we know today as TMFTML was born.
All superheroes have a mild-mannered alter ego and a compelling back story, and TMFTML is no different. The cinetrix tumbled to his dark secret only recently, while following the latest smart-assed, scatalogical thread.
Consider the striking similarities.
By day Mark Hunter is a painfully shy new kid....But by night, he's Hard Harry, the cynical, uncensored DJ of a pirate radio station. Idolized by his high school classmates (who are unaware of his real identity), Harry becomes a hero with his fiercely funny monologues on sex, love and rock and roll. [blurb copy]
-Hard Harry begins every pirate broadcast with Leonard Cohen's song "Everybody Knows." TMFTML takes his name from Cohen's song "Hallelujah."
-Both are from New York.
-Hard Harry disguises his voice; TMFTML uses the first-person plural.
-Hard Harry's broadcasts are traded around his high school on cassette; TMFTML's posts are linked to by all and sundry. "Who is this guy? editors with "legitimate" media jobs have been asking... for months, as they email around the latest TMFTML round of invective."
-Nobody knows his identity. Harry's insider knowledge turns the school administration upside down. The Observer reports, "the anonymously written The Minor Fall, The Major Lift--sardonic, self-effacing and witty--is the blog of choice for Romanesko-refreshers craving an undiluted hit of piss and vinegar.
-Hard Harry's self-deprecating monologues go on for five minutes or five hours. TMFTML is erratically prolific.
-Harry and TMFTML both threaten to quit but can't stay away from that bully pulpit. Or a good dick joke.
-Each one believes passionately that the anomie of suburban tract homes/corporate America is surmountable with the right soundtrack. A little New Orleans music, be it a cool Neville or Earl King doing "Big Chief," never hurts.
I could go on.
These shocking parallels also merit a word of caution to TMFTML. Remember what happened to Hard Harry. The FCC goons closed in on him, just as Wasserman's may on you.
Watch out for the copters, and talk hard.
--the Eat Me, Beat Me lady
p.s.- You really as horny as a 10-peckered owl?
Confidential to members of the fourth estate. This is a parody. I don't know who the guy is. I was scrambling for copy and cynically going after increased traffic. Surely you folks, of all people, can understand that. Pound sand, why don't you?
