Trash Talk, Part 1

During my senior year in college I became buddies with Mike Mooney.

Mike was an enigma: witty, moody, intellectual, athletic, and occasionally all at the same time. He also liked to drink, hated authority and greatly enjoyed  as campus alley cat, although I’m not exactly sure what the girls saw in him; especially since he saw so little in them, except maybe a good time. Whenever Mooney talked about date-night with of his honeys he made a point of running the recap through a verbal Cuisinart and making sheer vulgarity out of it. Which, he clearly enjoyed.

 

Shoot, I was no choir boy. Even so, there were lines I wouldn't cross even when the subject was “people I don’t like”. Yet Mooney's vocabulary sank to the gutter when he talked about those he supposedly did.  So there were those who, rightfully, may have considered Mike crass, a cad and a jerk. He wasn’t concerned. And I wasn't dating him.

 

But I did find him hysterically funny. And sometimes I could even make him laugh, too. And one night, under the influence of too much mirth and maybe a can or two of Coors, Mike and I decided our warped senses of humor were far too amusing to be wasted on ourselves. And that's when "The Trash" was born.

"The Trash" became our mouthpiece, a direct lampoon rip-off of The Flash, the tri-weekly campus newsletter. It was an almost dead-ringer, right down to the same bullet point format, layout and typeset. We even capped on how it was published. The Flash was paid for and published by the ASWC, or Associated Students of Whitworth College. "The Trash" was paid for and published by us- Mike and me- under the guise of the ASOV, the Associated Students of Opposing Views.  And while we didn't exactly oppose everything, we certainly made fun of everything. Every "Trash" bullet point mocked something; the more off-the-wall, the better.

Mooney and I split up the work. We both wrote, usually late at night, and before going to print Mike added the finishing touches with some crude artwork. Sure, we pushed the limits of good taste but always stopped just short of going too far. But when we did somehow manage to smear somebody or sacred cow, whether deliberately or accidentally, the writing was clever enough (and shrouded in enough layers of hyperbole), that it’d be hard to recognize the slander for the trees. And if a stink ever was raised, well… carrying on the long-standing tradition of insufferable college clowns everywhere, we simply didn't care.

But honestly, nobody ever really complained. In fact, from what we could gather everyone who read "The Trash" seemed to like it. We’d leave some around in the dining hall and Hub, or tacked to bulletin boards in other common areas and then watch and wait to see how people’s reactions. They didn’t know we’d put them there so the feedback was true and spontaneous. It’d start with a smile. Then progress to a mild chuckle, before escalating to bellowing laughter. By then, the person with them or standing behind them in line was demanding to know what was so funny, would be directed to a copy and the process would play out again. Apparently, "The Trash" and the ASOV were a hit.

Mike and I were enjoying our behind-the-scenes popularity and new-found success, and would’ve loved to take "The Trash" to the next level. However the expense was well beyond our means. It cost us about 4 bucks a week just to get 50 copies made. Even splitting the cost, there was no way we could afford pushing that up to 1500, which would’ve ensured campus-wide distribution. But then fate intervened.

We missed putting anything out during the week after Homecoming. I think we were both actually busy with class work that week. However instead of it being a set-back, the oversight apparently produced a ripple effect, all the way to the upper echelon of student affairs. We knew that was true because the Student Union Vice President posted a message in The Flash, the real newsletter.

Missing- Last week’s copy of The Trash. If you can help, contact Box 221.

Mooney and I were both amazed- and curious- and, naturally, couldn't resist getting a reply into the next Flash: 

 

Dear Box 221: To get The Trash, meet us at the campanile at 12:03 p.m. this Friday.

 

Whoever Box 221 was, they'd know the message was legit because we always made fun of the campanile- a campus landmark - and fictitious events described in "The Trash" never ever began on the hour. So the random time of 12:03 made perfect sense to us. And if anyone showed up, great, if not we'd rip 'em in "The Trash". Either way, Mike and I would be amused and have something else to write about. But Friday of that week at precisely 12:03 p.m., on one of those last really nice October days in the Northwest, where fall still fights to hold off winter, Mike and I were huddled underneath the campanile with the vice president of the Student Union.

At first, we thought we were going to be called on the carpet for our impertinence and ordered to stop.“Oh, no", Joanie, the VP assured us. "We love your stuff. In fact, I think everybody loves it and wants to know where they can get a copy. The phone in the office is ringing off the hook."  Really? We hadn't expected to hear that. And after fifteen minutes of conversation and negotiating, Joanie offered to have the ASWC pay for and distribute "The Trash" if we agreed to gentle it down a bit.

"Are you talking censorship?” Mike asked warily.

“Absolutely not. We’re not going to edit anything. In fact, nothing is really changing. You keep writing "The Trash" just as you are now. Just, ya know, when you can, be nice. The only difference is telling the print shop to bill the ASWC. And we’ll make sure it gets in everyone’s mailbox."

Mooney looked in my direction, but there really wasn't anything else to discuss. We both knew it was too good a deal to pass up and, after shaking on it, the meeting was over. “Okay, we’re going this way. Don’t follow us.”, Mike whispered as if we’d just emerged from a secret bunker even though it was the middle of the day and about a hundred other people were milling about or crossing the Loop Joanie, playing along, whispered back. “Okay. I'll go that way" and began walking in the opposite direction, towards the HUB. She disappeared into a gaggle of giggling girls, and I took a stray Frisbee off the noggin from some schmuck who didn’t know how to throw one. Then Mike and I vanished back into the dorm to write. And every Thursday after that, except over Christmas and spring breaks, Mike and I put out a new copy of "The Trash".

Our work remained scintillating silly, but we weren't hiding behind the cloak of anonymity anymore. Not as much, anyway, because some people- at least some people in the dorm- had figured out or knew first hand that Mike and I were "The Trash". Which was starting to feel okay. And though Mooney labeled me "The Big Cheese" of the operation, I was merely his friend and collaborator. I knew he was the driving force, the more gifted wordsmith and for sure, without his unrelenting impetus, "The Trash" wouldn’t have happened. And without Mooney, it wouldn't have been as fun.

 

Too bad in the end, he had to spoil it. More next time.