THE BEAST PAGE 3
Contrived Ethnic Persona

Name: Esteban

Turn-ons: Home Shopping Network, naïve consumers, the Pittsburgh Steelers, Zorro, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Epcot Center.

Turn-offs: Buyer’s remorse, Martin guitars, Consumer Reports, dedication, “Iron Man,” the Gypsy Kings.

How I got to be The BEAST Page 3 Contrived Ethnic Persona: In a word: ambiguity. Right down to my opaque trappings. Myth and fact, truth and fiction—about my origins and my credentials—are now profitably inseparable. I’m a nebulous marketing gestalt—from Pennsylvania. Some say I trained with classical master Andres Segovia in Spain and had legitimate talent before a series of accidents hampered my playing. Others insist I once tried to sell them AmWay products in an Arby’s parking lot. And still others that I’m the Taco Bell Chihuahua’s biological father. Whatever the case, I am perfectly positioned to bilk gullible middle-class parents who believe unwaveringly in their lethargic spawn. I’m empowered to prey on Americans’ dim notions of the exotic and their ignorance about almost everything.

Future plans: Alienating kids from music and their parents, once they discover how truly difficult and pointless it is to learn “Camptown Races.” Eventually driving children to live life in a narcotic haze rather than ever again face the prospect of humiliating failure. Plus I’m buying a new place in Jersey.

How I’d like to be remembered: A pit stop on American youth’s unenlightened journey to mediocrity and countless renditions of “wild thing.” I also hope to become an ironically dated punch line with a very short shelf life, used briefly by network-owned robo-hacks in the 2020s.