Maelstrom, Part IX: Requiem

MAELSTROM:

Immolation

Reckoning

Oblivion

Annihilation

Nemesis

Domination

Revelation

Scourge

Requiem

Maelstrom, Part I: Immolation (April 10, 2006) 

At the culmination of almost two years of strife, hostility, and toxicity (the totality of a two-year Master's program), this Maelstrom, this vowed destruction of Bowling Green State University, began in an inferno of rage, a crucible of fury and injustice. All doubt was burned away, and the dark truth of BGSU was made clear. 

Maelstrom, Part II: Reckoning (April 11, 2006) 

BGSU's fate was sealed. Just before completion of my Master's Degree at this two-year program, I declared it beyond salvation. 

Maelstrom, Part III: Oblivion (May 7, 2008) 

Unbelievably, just shy of two years after finishing and moving on with my life, BGSU was still fucking me over. My hatred was rekindled unexpectedly and exponentially. 

Maelstrom, Part IV: Annihilation (May 13, 2008) 

I vowed to destroy BGSU for all the things they'd done. 

Maelstrom, Part V: Nemesis (June 2, 2012) 

Spurred into action by further iniquity, I came out of a period of wandering in the wilderness to realize my destiny, no longer the victim of my experiences but the master of my rage. I was in control. And I was emboldened to become the scourge. 

Maelstrom, Part VI: Domination (August 10, 2014) 

Consumed by this vendetta, a clear vision came to me. I was now waging war by using music itself. I had a plan. A grand plan, one that would take years, but every cell in my body was shimmering with an aura of revenge. 

Maelstrom, Part VII: Revelation (March 28, 2016) 

In response to a request for a donation, I wrote a thoroughly long letter of remonstrance of the music program there, a manifesto of grievances. I sent my letter/expose to the dean. It was glorious. 

Maelstrom, Part VIII: Scourge (June 7, 2018) 

I declared an early victory by revealing the current status of my various musical projects as commentary to excoriate the entire rotten system of BGSU. I revealed the (admittedly delayed) plans from Part VI in 2014. I would never give up. But I knew it might be a while before further warfare. 

"But I also occasionally think about What Should Have Been in much broader terms than just the last few months I spent there. What the whole grad school experience should have been, had the whole establishment not been rotten to the core. I went into it believing it was going to be an amazing new chapter in my professional development. I was sad to say goodbye to my friends from Truman, but excited to begin the next big thing. It should have been a nurturing environment, encouraging and invigorating, where we lifted each other up (or at least stayed out of each other's way) in our growth as we further developed our craft. But three fundamental factors endemic to BGSU poisoned the garden: the dogma, the toxic faculty rivalry, and the intrigue manufactured by the insecure grad students who were all about passive-aggression, appearing inviting on the outside while subverting anyone's aesthetics they deemed threatening. Sooo many frenemies there."

--Maelstrom, Part VIII

Remember Mike Scheck? He was a senior when I was a second-year grad student, so he was always there, in the thick of the bullshit but he just mostly let it roll of his back so he could just get out of there. He was astute enough to see it all for what it really was, but not invested in a revolution. In the student lounge in the basement of the music building, in conversations at those circular tables between the instrument lockers and the windowed doors to the grassy hill in the center of that pernicious hexagonal donut of a dystopian musical arts center, he was always candid and blunt, and gloriously so. He called 'em as he saw 'em. 

One day, during such a group conversation, when I was giving my own observations about academic music culture at that program, talking about the saga of escalating tensions in my experience, Mike Scheck dubbed me "The Legend," declaring that he would henceforth refer to me as such. I asked him why the moniker, and he said it was because I had a certain air of it, that there was a legendary quality to me. My already well-documented position of antagonism by BGSU and my style of speaking about those experiences gave him the impression that I was a legend in the making. Other people at the table chuckled, but after that, whenever we'd meet in the lounge, he'd take a seat and address me with a grin, "The Legend!" At the time, I found it weirdly validating and even flattering, if a bit unsettling. Little did I know how prophetic it would be. 

In October 2018, timed to coincide with the annual New Music and Arts Festival (NMAF) at BGSU, Mittens fulfilled his destiny. THIS was the whole reason I created the alter ego in the first place: while I intended to have an ongoing fishing trip of "gotcha" moments by luring in starry-eyed, avant-garde yes-men by using links to my satire music on YouTube and SoundCloud, all along THIS was my Endgame with Mittens... life got in the way, but eventually I did it. 

But I held off on revealing the fact that my alter ego and my professional composer identity were the same person. I deliberately saved that for this year. As Saruman said, "One ill turn deserves another." 

And so, now I am officially coming out with it. I pulled the curtain back, revealing all on my professional music platforms, standing by my story. 

The innocuous, antiseptic (and as a result, dormant) Timothy James Scott's online music identity has a bitter truth to air. All cards are on the table. 

Fifteen years after the fact, my story elicits a shrug. Yeah, I get that. It may be a pittance now, but there's no statute of limitations on being a corrupt abyss, and the whole point, as I said in Part VIII, is that the same corrupt people who abused me then are presently still in power. That is the point. That is why it matters. Well, that and the need for personal catharsis. 

I suppose my ultimate goal is to become some sort of folk hero among each year's currently oppressed grad students in the BGSU music composition program. "The Legend" is fighting for you. In hushed murmers, they ask each other if they've heard about me, and my undermining of the faculty's facade sparks hope and intrigue. Yeah, that's the best-case scenario. 

This week, I not only unleashed Unfinished Fever Dreams with my commentary on Twitter and Facebook, I fucking posted a link to it on the BGSU Facebook page for the College of Musical Arts. That's right, I laid that flaming bag of dog shit on their doorstep, rang the bell, and when the door opened, rather than run away I dropped an M-80 on the bag, and then I pulled out a katana and started shredding their flowerbed. Fuck you, BGSU. I fear no confrontation. 

I also posted to the CMA alumni page, the BGSU Alumni Association, and even the BGSU Alumni Texas Region page. But most importantly, I wanted the current BGSU students to hear it. Where Facebook may deflect and evade me by censorship, Twitter allows direct assault. I fired all weapons, at every target available. It was explosively beautiful. 

I was seen. I was heard. Noticed by the officials, noticed by alumni, and most importantly, current students. 

I blitz-posted on all these places simultaneously, a few minutes before 11:00. In Easter time, in Ohio, that's 12:00 noon. Lunch hour. On the official pages, my post stayed up just over an hour before being taken down. More than enough time for music students to see it while scrolling on their phones during lunch. It's in their history now. You know where to find me. 

I had no illusions that my posts would be allowed to stay up indefinitely. I took screen captures of everything. After all, "Silence all dissenters" has always been the policy of the CMA, as has the suppression of any music they don't like. But I exist on another plane. I can't be intimidated or silenced as a post-academic. 

Honestly, even having just one hour was a success beyond my wildest expectations. Meanwhile, on a couple of music alumni pages, it's still there, being seen. Being heard. I checked my YouTube views and let out an undulating, Brad Pitt-sounding laugh of defiance. 

I also directly rubbed it in a couple faces of my former classmates, on Twitter. Those who were on the other end of the favoritism spectrum. Frenemies who contributed to the culture of tearing down the kind of music I wanted to pursue. Today, after fifteen years, out of the blue, they rounded the corner to find me standing there holding a Claymore. Haha. Awesome. 

Today, I was seen and heard. 

So, what's next for Maelstrom? I'm pretty sure this is as good as it gets. I'm pretty sure it's finished. But, then again, ten is a nice, round number... 

Eventually, I'll get around to finishing the entire cycle of Unfinished Fever Dreams, but no time soon. It's not a priority for me, technical difficulties are preventing me from working on it, and what little time I do have for composing is better spent on something along the lines of "success is the best revenge," or "living in the present" or whatever other candy pseudo-wisdom I'm constantly being fed. No, really, I'm composing "real" music that can actually generate income. And with two small kids, I don't have a lot of time for this bullshit. But it sure does feel good. 

As for the War of Perception, there is no real resolution to speak of, other than Maelstrom itself. I continue to wave the truth in as many unwilling faces as I can. But private messages? Not so much anymore. I feel I've mostly "won" the War of Perception among the minds that matter, and those who don't know any better are the very assholes I'm railing against. Old friends now bitter enemies? No, bitter memories. 

And the epic orchestral tone poem The Destruction of Bowling Green, Ohio... I am content to leave it as working temp tracks indefinitely, for my own listening. Maybe one day I'll make that into an album. Probably not. If anything, Fantasia Academia should take precedence, but all of these projects are ridiculously ambitious anyway, not worthy of my focus for composition time, for reasons previously stated.

Volition, same deal. One day it will be heard. (Dr. Lillios cheated me out of the orchestral reading I was supposed to have in April 2006. I should have had a recording of my orchestral thesis.) But I am a busy man, and a now more active composer these days. I have other, better things to do, and so little time. 

And that autobiographical, allegorical electrouacoustic opera? Mmmm, yes. Mittens' swan song, perhaps. I have an outline of every scene needed, but perfectionism in the libretto is holding me back. I have renamed its working title of "Maelstrom" to "Master of Music," and I think that will be the official title. Someday. I would even pay performers to film a studio recording of it. 

On a lighter note, one of my "Victory Conditions" is to remain relevant in certain old friends' lives. Every time I attempt to rekindle old connections, however, I am let down, and I feel increasingly forgotten and abandoned. I am ever intent on keeping alive the best aspects of that chapter of my life, and what the fuck is the point of going to Bowling Green if not to maintain connections with the people who deserve it? It sure as shit wasn't worth going into student loan debt for. 

I have several conditions for victory that have yet to be met, but that's another blog post. It would be nice to receive affirmation for a fucking change, but mainly, I want my friends back. Life dealt me a ton of lemons since then, and I want to cherry-pick every past chapter of my life, every former city of residence, for the best things to hold onto. In the case of BGSU, the list is very short indeed. But I will either reclaim those scant few saving graces as part of my present-day lifestyle or burn the whole damn town down trying. 

So, I ask again, what's next for Maelstrom? Rather, what else remains? 

Final duels. Several more former classmates who've made the accursed Ivory Tower their parasitic residence, and of course my former composition professors. The Big Four.

As I've said before: 

"I also often think about an epic lightsaber duel-to-the-death with each of the composition faculty members, individually. In a field of boiling acid geysers and lava and noxious fumes and flying piranhas and needles and voracious Pygmy-Cthulhu demon babies." 

As for some of my former classmates who were just as hurtful as anyone else, those who benefited from the biases, who absolutely cultivated and ensured a hostile environment every hour, those people who are still leeching off of the system while holding others down... yeah, those former frenemies of mine, now turned career villains... those once fellow grad students who are now the authorities in that toxic dystopia itself... Those people need a tall, frothy glass of comeuppance. 

More than that, though... What remains is the long-awaited confrontation with the Big Four. The composition professors of my day. Two are still there, one is retired, one is relocated. The status quo might be slightly different now, after all these years, but I have to say I empathize with Magneto in that kickass scene in X-Men: First Class, when he finds those two former Nazi officers in a pub. 

Time erases no wrongs. 

I will never be silenced. I will never silent. Corruption and villainy will never be forgotten by me. I will hold them all accountable, even when others say it doesn't matter anymore. No. My whole life, I've been held to a high standard, and I demand that those who abuse their powers to abuse people like me be held to a standard, too. We don't just "let it slide," as if that's some form of enlightenment. We don't just let people carry on to abuse others because we moved on. That's not justice. That's not enlightenment. That's just enabling the vile. What some of you reading this keep failing to realize is that I'm not pursuing this out of an inability to break from the past. I do it because those abusers are not only still in power but are in more power than ever before, and each year with a fresh crop of unsuspecting victims. 

I may not be able to end their careers, but I can tarnish their legacies. Being fearless, with nothing to lose, is a liberating, empowering thing. 

At this point in my life, my campaign to destroy BGSU is not a driving force, but it is a bucket-list item that neeeeeeds to be checked off before it's too late. 

Anything less would be injustice. 

Today I caused an uproar in Bowling Green. "The Legend" returned, quite unexpectedly, and sent a small, subtle ripple throughout the student body, as well as that of the alumni. Rumors, questions, gossip, and myths are now a part of the conversations at those circle tables in the basement student lounge, in real life, in present-day. The Legend made his mark today. Today, I exposed and challenged the villains, and no doubt resonated with some oppressed grad students who are experiencing something similar to what I went through. Today, people are talking about it. 

Today is a good day. The Legend spreads. 

We are each other's villains. My lightsaber is blood red. Come at me, Bowling Green State University College of Musical Arts. I await your duel. I will savor every moment of it. Succulent, delicious, climactic conflict. I am invincible. 

So, BGSU, engage me. Defend yourself. Bring me pleasure!