Written in collaboration by Monsieur Montage, Film Editor; Cat Fitzpatrick, Music Editor; and Matthew Poe, Literature Editor.

Recently hired professor of philosophy, “Crazy” Dave sought the counsel of local advice specialist Aunt Jody on her column Dear Aunt Jody last week in regards to preserving his employment status through a cult following. Initially worried about student evaluations in light of frequent student disdain for assignments and his own complete incompetence due to lacking any academic credentials, Crazy Dave conveyed his sentiments in a passionate email to Aunt Jody. The email transcript can be found below:

Dear Aunt Jody:

Oh… a little bit about me. I am clinically insane, or at least that’s what my doctor tells me! I recently escaped from a mental health clinic, where I was held against my will for some reasons I’d rather not go into right now. Anyway, long story short, I was able to break myself out of there, and went to the nearest place I could find to get something to eat–incidentally, it was a free meal too, at a local university. Anyway, there was, as you would imagine, a lot of liberal mumbo jumbo going on. There was actually a graduate conference going on while I was eating from the buffet, and I told them where to shove it! Gave them a deeply philosophical argument about why everything they said was fundamentally wrong, and, would you know it, they crowned me the winner of the graduate conference!

Anyway, I guess that wasn’t a very short long story. But anyway, you wouldn’t believe it, I was asked if I’d consider being a faculty member, and I said I’d work for under minimum wage, as I’ve never had a job in my life, and wouldn’t you know it, they fired all their philosophy faculty and now I’m acting as the sole philosophy teacher and also the department chair, the secretary, and pretty much every official position of that department. I’m getting paid in free food, and I live in my office. So I’m worried that if I don’t do a good job, they might fire me, and so I figure a good way to make a name for myself is to make a cult. But I’ve never made a cult and was wondering if you had any suggestions for how I might go about making a successful cult.

Please let me know, as time is of the essence, and also I’m pretty sure they’re poisoning my food!

Yours sincerely,

Crazy Dave!

PS: Did I mention I’m editor at The Thirsty Thespian, a very well respected newspaper? Anyway, our link is here: http://thirstythespian.com

Though the editors of this news source are touched by our local editor’s awareness and dedication to marketing, it is worth noting that The Thirsty Thespian stands by Aunt Jody’s advice despite Crazy Dave himself not finding these suggestions very helpful nor conducive to his cult-forming aspirations. Seconds after receiving an email response from Aunt Jody herself–expressing gratitude for his subscribing to her channel and concern for Crazy Dave’s mental well being–as well as a link to the video response, our local news editor was heard cursing: “My name is not Dave! It’s Crazy, Goddamn it! My last name is Dave!”

And if Aunt Jody’s innocent mistake of mistakenly calling him Dave instead of “Crazy” was not enough, “Crazy” Dave  found Aunt Jody’s “skirting the issue” not very helpful at all. However, he did express that her suggestion to unleash his anxieties on the head of a safety animal was “worth considering, apt,” obtaining his own safety pet–a dead squirrel he found on the side of the road–the carcass of which he could not prevent himself from devouring, uncooked, in what he described as “one hearty meal.”

After eating his safety animal, Crazy Dave morosely commented on his serenity with death, recalling his beloved dog, Crazy Dave 2, who passed away and who was “so precious” to him that he visited a taxidermist in hopes of “keeping him with me.” The taxidermist, it’s worth noting, was off-put by Crazy Dave’s odd request to be given any discarded organs, of which he planned to devour in hopes of “becoming one with Crazy Dave 2.” The stuffed dog didn’t last more than a few days, either, as Crazy Dave soon cooked his dog’s remains into a “scrumptious” stew.

Aunt Jody, whose both sensitive and wise advice to seek professional help and not start a cult, which The Thirsty Thespian implored Crazy Dave to take, was nonetheless rejected by the strong-willed, opinionated and under-qualified professor, who started a cult anyway, against our better judgments.

He sought the counsel of his brother, Irish Mike, for suggestions about how to start a cult, who apparently told him to “Obtain a house located off the beaten path and lure impressionable minds there, where you must compel their idolization of you as the one to whom they pledge allegiance and are compelled to call ‘Master.'”

 Crazy Dave took a long walk to the outskirts of town, where he found an abandoned house behind a rundown motel, which–though still in operation, despite its outside sketchy appearance–has lodged several complaints to the local authorities for “alarming cult-like propaganda, subjecting his crowd of “fools” to abject toil, as well as requests to commit bodily harm as ‘ritualistic practice.'”

Motel guests also complained about constantly feeling their neighbor’s “eerie, ghost-like presence and larger-than-life figure” watching over them. He always seems to stand on the stairs leading up toward his house, reserved, his hands in his pocket, looking down on the motel below entranced in deep, “worrisome, perhaps perverse” thought. Beth Taylor, a guest who stayed at the motel for not 20 minutes before checking out due to Crazy Dave’s “creepiness,” commented: “I can’t prove it, but I felt an eye peering in on me while in my room changing, while taking a shower. I couldn’t help but think he was watching me, waiting to strike.”

The authorities, despite investigating these rumors themselves, ultimately held off on finding out the source of the cult: Professor Crazy Dave, Distinguished Derridean Professor of Philosophy at the town university. Apparently, the local authorities salaries are controlled by the university, and the President of the university, on being contacted by the authorities about their “suspicious” faculty member, told them to back off, clarifying that, “Budgetary concerns dictate that we keep him on staff. He’s working for practically nothing, and his lesson plans, though chaotic, seem to contain intelligent thoughts that his students can value from.” The president, who reportedly has no expertise in philosophy and thus cannot comment on the level to which Crazy Dave’s lessons are genuinely credible, explained his pseudo-professional analysis of Crazy Dave’s credentials: “He uses big words. I didn’t understand half of what he said. I’m pretty sure he knows what he’s talking about.”

-The Editors.

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