It is with great pride and pleasure and a crystal awareness of the irony involved that I accept the distinction of being the first student who suffers a personal attack from the Dartmouth Review for the 1998-99 academic year. The mud-slinging took the form of an item in the first issue's "Week in Review," plainly titled, "How Horrible is Bill Kartalopoulos?"
When I first heard that the Review had done a piece on my unique and baseless "self-love," I feared (and with good reason) that they had published a critical expose of my horrible masturbation habits. I certainly don't need the student body knowing how much Neosporin I go through in the average week, nor the contents of this month's phone bill.
So when I finally got my hands on a copy of the issue, featuring the paper's trippiest cover to date, it was with some relief that I finally read the paper's unsigned invective against me.
It was initially shocking to see my name in such a bold and provocative headline, flanked on either side by a photo of me from an old Dartmouth Alumni Magazine. I read the article through several times. It attempted to address the question in its headline: "How Horrible is Bill Kartalopoulos?" This is a question I've often pondered myself, usually in the dead of night, when sleep fails to claim me, as I lie alone in the dark of my crappy little apartment. "How Horrible is Bill Kartalopoulos?" Pretty horrible, I guess. And that's me talking.
After a painting a largely inaccurate portrait of my activities over the last few years, the "How Horrible is Bill Kartalopoulos" piece takes aim at a column I wrote for The Dartmouth earlier this term, titled "The Voice of Masochism" [Oct. 1]. A portion of the piece is reproduced, entirely without context, as evidence that I am essentially "narcissistic," "overwrought" and "self-absorbed." Personally, I wasn't really offended by any of these characterizations. Additionally, they function as accurate descriptors of the Dartmouth Review in recent years.
The article is also accompanied by a bar graph ranking the most horrible people of all time. These kinds of graphics are useful not only in filling space when text is short, but in allowing me a handy reference guide to my own horrible nature. I keep it in my wallet right next to my Student Advantage card and an aging Sheik condom.
According to this chart, the Review has determined that I am quite possibly the "Worst Guy Ever." I'm in relatively distinguished company though, ranked alongside Donald Trump, Gore Vidal and the "Real World's" Puck. But don't let the Review fool you into thinking that its editors know a thing about Vidal; that's just an ideological regurgitation of Jeff Hart's own bitter personal philosophy. Based on his columns, the man is clearly in decline. Still and all, I don't mind being compared to Gore Vidal.
However, I take objection to the notion that I am more horrible than aggressive stage parents. As a former child-star myself (see the 1986-87 season of the "New Mickey Mouse Club" and two episodes of "Small Wonder"), I would never put a kid through that kind of hell. You haven't experienced low-self esteem until you've been told you need to lose five pounds in time for Tuesday's "My Two Dads" audition.
Even that may be forgivable, but it is way out of line to assert that I am somehow more horrible than "uninformed actors with political agendas." I may be many things, and I even admit to a variety of antisocial, neurotic and unsettling qualities, but I am, without a doubt, less horrible than Ronald Reagan. I never nuked no Panamanian farmers.
I'm sorry that the Review did not enjoy my first column in The D. Its critique indicates that it missed the ironic tone and satirical themes of the column and entirely failed to appreciate that I was constructing a narrative voice within the format of the piece. But the Review hasn't had a decent sense of humor or literary style since the mid-1980s, so it's actually a compliment.
Of course, I must admit to feeling a certain adrenaline rush in having been so prominently (and unexpectedly) featured in a campus publication. When I gave Claire Danes her drink tickets at Soho's Wax Bar, and our eyes locked ever so briefly, I wonder if either of us knew we would one day share a page in the Dartmouth Review? Unfortunately, I never got to ask her. I was too busy making sure the Chemical Brothers got extra Chupa Chups.
Clearly, I'm experiencing a variety of feelings in response to my recent vilification in the Review, and it will take some time to fully sort through my thoughts on this matter. A 12-step program may be in order. However, my predominant thought right now is this: Hey, thanks for the free publicity, man. I'm getting treated like I'm Jeremy London on this campus all of a sudden. And he's been in Tiger Beat.