Si si je suis un rock star

Rude awakenings: N/A. (Might've had to do with the entire bottle of Aussie cabernet-shiraz I downed last night. Yes, booze IS the answer.)
Days to departure: 21. Three (count 'em, 3!) weeks.

I am a fucking rock star.

Or at least that's how I should feel after yesterday's relatively fawning treatment by the Powers That Be in the Harrow halls. After filing two more complaints earlier in the day I had two separate visits not just by the night desk clerk but also from one of the student Residential Assistants, as they're called, last night. Both wanted to check in and let me know they were on the job. Which I appreciate, of course. Then again, maybe they came on suicide watch. (If I were a little more paranoid -- and in the last 48 hours I've been marginally more lucid than what constitutes 'normal' of late -- then I'd say someone's found out about my blog and is getting concerned with the tone and timbre of some of my recent rants.)

But it's sad that it's come to this; my life is now one constant intrusion. The whole point of my rabble-rousing was quite the opposite: to restore a modicum of peace and sanity for the meagre amount of time I have left in this place. As I told Jason, the RA who came to visit last night, I really don't care if Stubby across the hall is dealing drugs; it's not as if a lifetime in the music business hasn't inured me to these things. I just wish the fuck he'd do it discreetly.

I mean, if you've got to have a parade of shady characters trooping up and down our hallway at the rate of one every ten minutes after 1:00 AM, then do it quietly. When your 'clients' duck in for their dope, tell them close the door gently; letting it slam in the usual fashion is only advertising your illicit enterprise to all and sundry. Ditto for when they leave. And tell them to shut their fat gobs while they're at it. Shouting the odds down the hallway is not a particularly clever way to avoid detection. Nor, for that matter, is the pungent cloud of skunkweed smoke filling the corridor in the immediate vicinity of your door.

Therein lies part of the problem. The long-lasting nocturnal parties themselves have died down (in the last 48 hour cycle anyway; I'm sure it'll pick up again, as it always does). But that still doesn't mean that my neighbours and I aren't woken up by people coming in and going out at all hours -- the noise is simply more transient. It's harder to catch them in the act, so to speak.

And of course my neighbours have been disappointingly silent on the whole affair; despite their grumblings and general agreement with my occasional jeremiads, they have remained resolutely inactive. Whether that's because they are too tired, or timid, apathetic, fearful of reprisal, simply resigned or what, I'm not sure. But up until now I've had to carry the can and do all the dirty work. I mean, someone has to do it, and whether that's simply because I have a lower bullshit threshold, it might as well be me. But of course after I'm gone things will just get worse again, and they'll have no one to speak up for them.

Which leads me to another thing that has me almost feeling like a rock star -- or at least an older, more curmudgeonly version of Jean Valjean in Les Miserables* (Hugo's version, not the wimpy musical; all these years later and I still can't hold a note). Yesterday I hosted an impromptu political rally in the kitchen at dinnertime. To cut a long story short I was trying to tell everyone that their damage deposits -- which they may get back once they are safely out of halls and thus out of the country! -- are likely to be forfeited due to the unfortunate cooker incident prior to Christmas (which I have yet to relate here). They seem to have forgotten about it, or at least they harbour a naive faith that we will not, in fact, be charged for the alleged damages. But I have serious doubts, particularly since all my enquiries -- four written requests to date -- have been studiously ignored by halls management.

In those few minutes, I felt like I was making progress. Especially when they realized their money was at stake, never mind their academic standing, their honour, their criminal records, etc. I felt I had their attention. I felt we were as one, together, fighting the good fight for the common purpose. And almost in unison they shouted, "Yes! We agree! We must not be denied justice by the oppressive corporate-bureaucratic regime! Let us rise up together!" And then we marched out of the kitchen and down to the halls management office, which we proceeded to storm and occupy until the press arrived and made our democratic fight front-page news across the land.

Well, that's how the scene ends in my fevered imagination, anyway.

What they really said was, "Oh, okay. If you write something up we'll sign it."

[Sobs silently, pounding head repeatedly against desk.]


* At this point the more imaginative writers in the audience will detect the imminent and plausible, Hollywoodesque plot twist, wherein our aging hero spontaneously throws himself into the current student elections just to "show the kids how it's done." At first considered little more than a curio or novelty, the old man on campus is at first championed out of sarcastic if somewhat good-natured student japery -- which then turns into a serious expression of support as our hero wins one crucial battle against the evil educational regime after another . Eventually, carried along on a tide of popular support, Ken Clean-Air System must face off against the laissez-faire stooge candidate planted by the opposition, whose sole platform plank is "cheaper beer in the student union bar." In the student union presidential debates our protagonist launches an impassioned plea to the newly emancipated students and he declines to run, urging them instead to think for themselves and to stop blindly following fashionable trends or leaders. Naturally they do. The stooge changes sides and takes up the rallying cry. Oppression is vanquished; the students are liberated; Ken goes home to his lovely wife; and all live happily ever after. The End. Roll credits.