What it was was that they were kinda pissed at me when I first came up with it. They wouldn't admit it, but they were. You see, they're the ones who're always writing all the poetry and prose in the context of the Western Canon, in addition to the cool treatises on the death of liberalism, while all I do is the graphics and CGI stuff and things. Now y'all know that brevity is the soul of wit, so like when I came up with the one word which encompassed the entire jollyroger.com enterprise, they knew they were beat. But anyway, we're all still friends, and I've been buyin' as of late, just to cheer 'em up, and I let Drake win at tennis yest erday. I've been letting Elliot win at golf ever since I came up with the whole pirate motif. And the more I think about it, the cooler it is. When I hear the word "grungervative," I picture myself eating steak, listening to the Smashing Pumpkins (unles s it's between noon and three, 'cause then Rush is on), and reading Shakespeare, right up until tee-time.

I was so psyched about my fantastic contribution to the contemporary WWW literary revolution, that I decided to let Rolling Stone know about it all. It would be selfish to keep the Grungervative Literary Revolution all to ourselves, and we're comp assionate people. Here's the letter I penned for the occaison-- I might also send a copy to The National Review.

Dear Rolling Stone,

I invite you to sail on over to my WWW site, http://jollyroger.com/, the home port of the generation-x intellectual. Over 5,000 web-surfers come on by each month, and over 2,500 fans and stow-aways have signed aboard The Joll y Roger, hailed the flagship of the WWW Grungervative Literary Revolution. We like the music, but we don't do the drugs, and we wish the liberal boomers would stop handing u s condoms. Why don't they go use 'em on their third wife/husband/companion/roommate, and let the young alone to dream of romance and immortal love? The Jolly Roger was recently ranked in the top 5% of all WWW sites, alongside Townhall, and we so ld over 100 jollyroger.com t-shirts this past week, along with copies of Moby Dick. Check 'em out at http://jollyroger.com/shirt.html.

Liberal editors, administrators, and professors, when entrusted with the helms of our presses and universities, forfeited on their sacred responsibility to sustain a moral course for society. The mission of the Good Ship is to take up the slack and rev ive Great Literature, such as that which has been banned for promoting violence against whales. A new popular culture centered about contemporary works written in the context of the Great Books will play a fundamental role in reforming society and savin g our institutions from being subject to further decadence. I believe that no medium is superior to that of the printed word in nurturing the rational part of the human soul-- the foundation upon which the two pillars of Democracy, Freedom and Moral Resp onsibility, are erected. Great Literature alone can navigate the vast depths of man's moral conscience and retrieve the spiritual treasures that lie there.

As a physics graduate student I have been taught by Reality to trust not The Chronicle of Higher Education, nor the University President, nor the NEA, nor the NEH, nor Time Warner. For they all looked on in indifference, in silence, or in satisfac tion as the heritage our forefathers conceived of and died for, in which all men are created equal, was desecrated. They stood by and handed us condoms as God, who Jefferson humbly credited with giving us all the gift of freedom, was excommunicated from the ivied campuses, so as to make room for the perverse context in which the nihilistic, Marxist politics of the skin color scholars and gender generals today prevails.

Thus today I find myself part of a generation which perceives that after being bound by holy matrimony there's a fifty-fifty chance that we will ultimately say, "just kidding." I find myself part of a generation that wonders at the use of learning all th e multicultural crap, when fading fast is the institution in which one can learn to trust one's father. I am part of a generation which was denied the sacred, deterred from reading the Great Books, and encouraged to make higher resolution TV's so as to enhance Snoop Doggy Dogg's videos. We're weary of having our sensibilities assaulted by the never-ending barrage of boomer orchestrated temptations, and then having our tax-dollars plundered by resentiks countering popular culture's decline with lesbian performance art. We're tired of free love, and wouldn't mind earning some that was worth something.

Members of my generation will be rewarded with fame and fortune for conforming to liberal artistic standards and shooting heroin, but if we write a rhyming love sonnet, we will be kicked out of class by a feminist. I pen this letter knowing that Rolling Stone has one of the few New York addresses where these truth-inspired words, brimming with youthful honesty and righteous rebellion, can be sent to and read without inspiring dismay, fear, and resentment. Happy birthday.

And I write to the noble Rolling Stone not to lament, but to exalt. For upon the WWW I have found a frontier equal to my pioneering spirit, which has longed to sail free of the socialist- tinged institutions of higher education. I have fabricated a rugged vessel from the planks of conservatism to keep my thoughts afloat as I sail the world, battling the forces which seek to destroy the eternal in my soul. The Jolly Roger is armed with the Western Canon, and she is prepared to deliver broadside blasts of truth upon resentnik vessels sneakin' up on the port side in the postmodern fog. Upon this deck sober thought reigns, and words mean things. Smoking dope isn't cool here-- reading the immortal words of the Western Canon is. Learning three chords, shooting heroin, and selling your soul to David Geffen just won't cut it anymore, nor will brown-nosing a feminist instructor. I let my peers know that they're welcome to conform to what Courtney Love needs them to be, but I shall confiscate the bogus idea that they are independent people from their mind, and replace it with the fact that they are liberal pawns, accepting pornographic bribes in exchange for voting for liberals to spend the money they will never earn. Slackers are welcome to walk the plank and get left in Reality's wake. But the free-thinkers shall join me in pirating the profound context of the Great Books which has been buried 'neath postmodernism, feminism, nihilism, and MTV, and returning it to its rightful owner-- the people. Liberals who stand in the way of my Destiny shall soon sink in the wake of my Ship.

Enclosed in this envelope please find a copy of The Red Avengers of All that is Right And True's Declaration of Independence From Liberals. This call to arms is popular amongst my peers, and it has been picked up by several WWW publications, including The Internet Herald, The Revolutionary, The Jolly Roger, and The Carolina Review. I was hoping that Rolling Stone might be interested in publishing it.

A lot of people are psyched to see what I'm saying getting said. I speak from the heart, and while this inspires controversy, it is also forms the foundation of my credibility. I'm providing generation-x an alternative to alternative consisting of a voice inspired by truths higher than heroin. The WWW is allowing me and my goatee to have fun filling the spiritual void created and maintained by the postmodern power-mongererer. I'm proud to be at your service, as the twenty-six year old Captain of t he Conservative/Grunge Literary Revolution.

And alas-- as there is little chance that a liberal will touch any of this with a ten foot oar, and as it happens that liberals edit The Chronicle of Higher Education, The New York Times, Spin, and New York in general, I was hoping t hat Rolling Stone might be able to help get the word out concerning all the ruthless fun we're having aboard the Good Ship. Please be sure to puruse the encouraging responses we've received: http://jollyroger.com/bea conway/response.html

My novel The Drake Raft Field Trip was represented by Hollywood agent for a year, during which he bought me meals and encouraged me to make it into a screenplay. But instead of murdering what I had created, I have set out to revive the cultural context in which the profound can be appreciated. The wind has just begun to rise. I, and an entire generation, would be grateful for a mention in your intellectually revered pages.

Happy Holidays

Becket "Bluebeard" Knottingham

P.S. And don't forget to order your jollyroger.com t-shirt, and pick up a copy of Moby Dick while you're at it! http://jollyroger.com/shirt.html

P.P.S. My only literary awards to date have been getting kicked out of Joyce Carol Oate's creative writing class at Princeton, and off of the UNC www sunsite server.