The redheaded rager reticently reaches retirement

These past three years I’ve done my best to tell you what dance company is in town, what’s going wrong in the entertainment industry and, more importantly, why my opinions on movies are infinitely better than yours and that all the things good and right in the world flow freely from my mouth like some apocalyptic onrushing of saliva coated truthyness.

What I haven’t spent the last three years doing is talking about myself, and I was informed at the prodding insistence of my editor that Twitter’s 140 character limit was not enough, and so here I am for a sappy goodbye hug and kiss. Mwah!

The truth of the matter is I’m graduating, and what a weird coincidence, the government is wondering what I did with that 17,000 dollars I borrowed from them. Quick, hide T-Pain’s music video cast and the swimming pool full of hummus!

I keep trying to tell them I’m an English major and by default am not allowed to have money. I mean, I would spend it on things like, gasp, books. Which by the way, you don’t read any. You should work on that. I don’t want Twilight and Harry Potter spin-offs to be the only things I’m shelving when I start my inevitable employ at Barnes & Noble. At least write something about robots, or monkeys. Or robot monkeys, that would be coolio up in this hizzie.

I wish, however, that I could say the leave was voluntary for many of my comrades in print. As J. Peder Zane put in his final column at the N&O on Sunday, “Maybe it didn’t have to turn out this way. But it did. And there you have it.” In truth, no one is right in this argument between the Internet versus print journalism. But here’s something I do know — the money you put into print journalism goes back into your community, and more than some Internet mogul living off the fat of Google advertising, your community could use the support. I’ll probably skip town before too long, but someday I’d like to come back here and raise a wild pack of little Morgans. This can only happen if Raleigh hasn’t become a smoldering hole in the ground containing four Wal-Marts and a Piggly Wiggly. So remember kids, keep Raleigh cool.

Or I’ll go to Charlotte! I mean it!

Now, now, don’t worry, I’m not going to spend this time reviewing y’all. Y’all are the best. The absolute. You’re the people who come up to me on the street and say “hey, you’re that guy who hates everything!” and “I thought you were a woman, why else would you give Max Payne a bad review?”

It has been a blast-diddley-ast, but I do have a request. Get mad. Don’t get boring. I’m not going to tell you about life. I wouldn’t know what to tell you about life. Go write your congressman or debate the recession, if that’s what works. But all I’ve ever said, all I will say, is that before anything comes getting mad. Getting concerned. Go talk to the homeless, go work for Habitat for Humanity, go write an op-ed column for Technician, start learning to care now, before it’s too late. The world isn’t going to be any less dark when you finally pass the torch to the next generation, but there can be a little less mess to stumble over when the torch gets there. Just a little.

As for me, here are the most interesting things to know — my favorite cake is Red Velvet, my middle name is Neill, and the funniest movie ever made is Mystery Science Theatre 3000: The Movie.

The only other things worth knowing is I love movies and I love you guys.

Morgan outtie.