Will.I.Am's CNN Hologram Gets Invited to the Academy Awards Will.I.Am's hands were trembling in their futuristic, ribbed gloves with unnecessary glowing wires sticking out of them as he turned over the envelope. He loved opening fan letters! The envelope was made of eggshell paper, heavy, and felt almost leathery to the touch, which is to say it was a very nice envelope! He read the elegant calligraphy on the front:
To: Will.I.Am's CNN Hologram
Hollywood, California
From: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
He didn't know what to make of someone named The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences addressing a letter to the hologram he appeared as one time on CNN during the Obama election coverage, but then again, Will.I.Am didn't know what to make of a lot of things: for instance, the one time he appeared as a hologram on CNN during the Obama election coverage. The world was strange and enigmatic, and sometimes people asked you to do strange things like agree to appear on a serious news network during a serious, meaningful election as a Goosebumps Special Hologram Cover-caliber hologram, and you just had to say yes, because? Will.I.Am burped. He forgot about his last thought, but that was OK because he had a feeling that today would be a good, good day, and the envelope he was opening would have good, good things inside it. He was looking forward to being able to say mazel tov to himself.
Will.I.Am opened the envelope, which made a pleasantly crisp sound, like lettuce tearing. He pulled out a piece of paper, unfolded it, and held it up in the early morning Los Angeles light. A watermark appeared in the middle of the paper in the shape of a nude man holding a saber. He said to the watermark, “You look great, man. That sabre is fresh! Where did you get it?” The watermark didn't say anything back, which was strange and a little rude, rude watermark man! Will.I.Am made a mental note to carry around sabers more often.
Thirty minutes later in the driveway Will.I.Am turned from the watermark to start reading the message written over it. Will.I.Am thought this was another mysterious thing that words, strung together, could mean things. Life was hard enough between picking one space gothic outfit over another, and then people expected you to solder words together, like the millions of mechanical parts that made up his favorite Lamborghini Murciélago, the one he had fitted with operational gun turrets that shot confetti, a special platform for him and Fergie to stand on and wave at fans when they drove in to a show, and the body molded to look like a lumbering elephant (it was an unusual, nonsensical, and very expensive Lamborghini Murciélago, is the point), and then they expected the words to make sense. People in the place!
Will.I.Am had a headache. He took a nap in his bed. His bed was a rocket ship with operational thrusters that fired bubbles. He woke up five hours later and saw the letter on his nightstand, still waiting to be read. Will.I.Am took a poop in the bathroom.
Fergie called Will.I.Am a couple hours later. “Hello, William?”
“This is I am.”
Fergie didn't say anything. They both thought phone calls were hard because they were a lot like talking to someone who wasn't there. Will.I.Am was trying to picture what the person he was talking to, Fergie, looked like, and Fergie was trying to picture what he looked like, and it was all very hard and exhausting, people just never realized how tough it was to be a celebrity. Will.I.Am hung up two silent, thought-filled hours later. What a good phone conversation! Will.I.Am's good, good day had turned into a good, good night.
Will.I.Am noticed the letter sitting on his nightstand. He started reading it:
“The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is pleased to extend an invitation to Will.I.Am to appear, in hologram form, as an Oscar telecast presenter. The Academy producers think this will be a funny, timely, relevant joke, and hope you will think so too...” Will.I.Am dropped the letter without reading the rest (missing the part that said he would have to attend to film the hologram, and that the addressee on the envelope was just a joke), to the snow leopard rug warming his bare toes. The letter wasn't actually to him! Will.I.Am was very angry. He was very angry that his hologram had gotten an invitation to the Academy Awards over him. And even though he had no special reason to be at the Academy Awards among outsized egos with outsized paychecks, attending lavish parties with foods he couldn't pronounce (words!), handing awards to themselves in what was actually a self-aggrandizing ceremony cementing their relevance, power, and wealth in a world that already recognized them as relevant, powerful, and wealthy, it was still unfair that his hologram would get to go and he would have to stay at home in his mansion shaped like an Islamic crescent moon encircling a giant oasis/pool with waterfalls, three secret grottos, a lazy river, and a dragon water-slide. Even though it was a negative action, and his personal yogi would disapprove, Will.I.Am vowed never to speak to his hologram again. The night was neither good nor bad, but some crepuscular, indeterminate shade between. Will.I.Am got the inside of his yellow space helmet visor wet with his angry, confused tears.
