This One Isn't Funny

First, I'd like you to watch this.  It's a little over 12 minutes long, and I will understand if you don't want to watch it -- but I think you should.  Especially if you have kids, because I want you to see that while it does "get better" (as all the celebrities are rightly saying in the anti-bullying videos making the rounds these days) it never ever really goes away.

I'm willing to bet every single one of you reading this has been teased or picked on in your life, for silly things or serious things or things you don't understand.  For many people, it's nothing.  It's one jerk saying something mean to you, or a friend who takes a joke too far, and sometimes it hurts like hell.  Then you forget about it and move on and it never comes up again.  But think of one of those times right now, and try to remember how bad you felt in the moment it happened.  Now, try to think of how much of that you would be able to take before you jumped off a bridge or hanged yourself in your bedroom or shot yourself in the head.  Because that's what has been happening.  Kids are being terrorized and kids are killing themselves.

I was bullied when I was a kid.  From kindergarten until the day I graduated high school, I was teased and tortured almost every single school day.  It felt awful and it felt like it would never end, but it did.  I finished high school a year earlier than I had to and I left and I will be perfectly happy if I never see any of the pathetic pieces of shit that bullied me ever again.  But as bad as it was for me, I never wanted to die because of it.  That's why it's like a punch in the heart every time I see a story in the news about a bullied kid committing suicide -- because I know how much it hurt when I was bullied, yet I can't even begin to comprehend how much it has to hurt before a person takes their own life.

It's pretty common, I think, for adults to tell kids to be tough or suck it up when someone teases them.  Sometimes it's what you have to do, to help a kid grow up strong and able to stand up for him or herself.  But for fucksake, do NOT ignore your son or daughter if they say they're being bullied or you think they're being bullied -- because while it does get better ( I know this because it got better for me) the effects of being bullied never completely go away (I also know this because it also happened to me.)  You'll see that if you watch the video I linked to at the beginning of this post.  You'll see a man who has grown up to be very successful in his life and his work after a childhood of being terrorized.....but you'll also see a man who is obviously still hurting from everything that happened to him and everything that was said to him all those years ago.  

There are people who argue being bullied makes a child a stronger adult.  I agree with that, but it pisses me right the fuck off anyway.  Yes, maybe I'm tougher now because I had to be when I was a kid -- but I was forced into it.  I'd rather be able to say that I'm tough because I chose to be, not because I had to be because the alternative was to fall apart.  I hope if you're a parent, that's what you want for your kids, too.

So we can confirm (based on my scientific analysis of me) that being bullied can lead to tougher adults.  I guess in the grander scheme of things, that's not a bad thing.  But do you know what is a bad thing?  Wondering if people actually like you, or if they're just putting up with you until you go away.  Not being able to fully believe that a friend's light-hearted, good-natured teasing isn't really cruelty in disguise.  Thinking that you're alone at night not because you just happen to be alone, but because there's no one who can stand being around you.  Being afraid sometimes that everything bad everyone ever said to you might be true.

I'm never telling anyone the things people said or did to me when I was a kid.  I've tried to before, and it hurts like hell just to almost say those things aloud.  But I will tell you that I sometimes feel all of those things I mentioned above.  I graduated high school when I was 18.  I'm 31 as I write this.  It's been 13 years since I was bullied (don't bother pointing it out if that number is wrong -- I am well aware I blow at math) and it still affects me.  I think it always will.

I'm not writing this for sympathy.  I'm not writing this because I actually want to talk to people in great detail about it, despite my protests that I don't.  Ask almost any adult you know who was bullied as a kid to describe the things they were bullied about, and I wish you luck getting them to answer you.  We losers and nerds and punching bags don't particularly want to re-live the specifics of our loser-ness and nerd-ness and punching bag-ness.

So, no -- I'm not writing this for attention.  I'm writing this and I'm telling you that it still affects me because I want you to be able to help your kids so that it won't be affecting them when they are 31.  It's hard to stop it if you don't know it's happening ( I didn't exactly come home from school and tell my parents that everyone thought I was a loser) but the way things are now, I think parents need to pay better attention.  Kids are killing themselves.  I can't believe that there aren't signs well in advance that something is going wrong.  

I don't have kids.  I don't know the answer.  I don't know how to let your children know it's OK and it's not weak to come to you for help, but you have to find a way to do just that.  Please please PLEASE don't let your children grow up to be like me.  Don't get me wrong -- I think I'm pretty awesome.  I have a kick-ass job and very awesome friends.  I'm smart and I'm funny and I'm cute and I'm nice.  I don't punch babies or kick dogs.  I've never killed a hobo and left his carcass on train tracks.  I will probably never be described by my neighbours as someone who "seemed so normal until they found all those bodies in her basement."  But I'm also very insecure a lot of the time.  I can be paranoid, and I often wonder if people actually like me.  And a lot of the time, I wonder why they do.  I cry sometimes when I (mistakenly) think people are being mean to me, and I cry sometimes when people are being nice, because deep down, I don't think I'm always sure I deserve it.  And the entire time I'm feeling any of those things, I know I'm being a dumbass -- but I truly can't help it.  You don't want that for your kids.  You don't want your kids to grow up and wonder even one-percent of the time whether they actually deserve to be happy.  

As much as it sucked when I was a kid, and as much as it affects me now, at least I'm still here.  I wish I could say that for Tyler Clementi.  And Ryan Halligan.  And Megan Meier.  Phoebe Prince.  Jared High.  April Himes.  And who knows how many more.  

To my friends who have kids and my friends who will: Please don't let them to grow up to be insecure.  Please don't let them grow up questioning whether they are worthy of their friends.  Please don't let them grow up to be someone who cries when someone says something nice to them because sometimes they just can't fathom another person seeing anything good in them.  And please make sure I never have to read their name in a news story about a kid who just couldn't take it anymore.

~~~

Thanksgiving: An Important Day, and Also an Opportunity to Post Photos of Adult Movie Covers and Zombies

According to Wikipedia (which is pretty much Google with fewer pictures of naked asses when I search for 'butt load') Thanksgiving is "as annual Canadian holiday to give thanks at the close of the harvest season."

They just harvested your grandma.

I didn't harvest anything this year because I'm lazy, and because my neighbours would probably get pissed off if I started growing corn in the front yard.  Mostly because this is what I'd put up to keep the crows away:

Also effective against anyone who might want to come to my door to "talk to me for a minute."

I am, of course, thankful for my family*.

Fairly accurate, actually.

My immediate family is pretty small, but I have lots of aunts and uncles and cousins.  Almost everyone I'm related to is insane.  Some people have boring families -- I have the least boring family ever.  And somehow, all the genetics and traits of all my ancestors combined to make a whole bunch of really cool (insane) people.  I'm thankful that I'm one of them.

(*Thankfulness does not extend to all members of family.  Null and void for the stupid ones that I don't like.)

I am thankful for my friends.

I'm not implying all my friends are jackasses.  I'm flat-out saying it.  You are all jackasses.

And that's why I like them.  I'm a jackass, too, so I prefer to run with a herd of jackasses.  You guys are all the best jackasses ever.

I'm thankful for my job.

This is not my job, but it has some similarities: There are some dicks, they can be hard (to work with), but it often works out in the end. (Ha ha!  Get it?  The END!!  HA!)

Maybe this is shallow, but I'm thankful for the things I have. 

My car:

Looks just like this, but without some guy in it.  And not parked in front of a church (because of the whole bursting-into-flames thing)

My house:

Like this one, but shitty.

My DVDs:

Right now you're wondering if I'm kidding.  And also if you can borrow them if I'm not.

I'm thankful that I live in a country where I can write a blog featuring photos of pornographic movies.  Where I can call a politician a moron.  Where I can learn and work and live my life without being told that I can't.  Where I never stop before I walk outside and think "I hope I've covered up enough of my body to be allowed out in public."  Or "I hope the place where I work is still standing when I get to it."  Or "I hope I'm still around to come back home later today."  I'm thankful that I live in a place where people get angry when they hear a news story about someone being beaten or bullied for being different.  Where thousands of people will come together and walk along our city's streets to raise money for people who are hurting.  Where they will gather in public and hold signs and yell at the top of their lungs about something they care about, even if it's something I think is complete bullshit.  (And quite frankly, I usually think it's complete bullshit.)  But I'm thankful that there are so many people who care enough about something to tell the rest of us about it.  I'm also thankful for the middle fingers I have on both hands which I can show these people when I drive by them.

So thanks, Thanksgiving, for giving me an opportunity to write this.  It's nice to say thanks for everyone and everything I love having in my life.  You all make me a better person, and I'd hate this world if even one of you wasn't on it.

As of midnight tonight, Thanksgiving will be over.  Which means I can go back to being greedy and thankless, and you can all go screw yourself until next year.

~~~~~

Something About Rabbits and Dildos and Self-Realization and Pooping Red

Some days, I'm a dildo.

Today was definitely one of those days.  There are a few people who know that better than anyone, since they were the unfortunate victims of my dildo-ness -- including one poor guy who made a harmless damn joke, then found himself faced with this:

.....and then this:

.....and then this:

Yet he somehow managed not to do this:

Which he would have been totally justified in doing.


So that was Dildo Move Number One for me today.  Followed closely by several more dildo-esque reactions and overreactions and one instance of me telling a homeless guy to fuck off.  And then I couldn't find my car keys, so I swore within earshot of a child.  And then I found my car keys, but I couldn't find my stupid parking slip, so I swore again.  Still within earshot of the child.  And then I got stuck waiting behind an idiot at the pay-station at the parking lot who couldn't figure out where to put her fucking twoonie. 

(This is not the first image that comes up when you do a Google search for "stick it up your ass.")

And I thought "WHY THE SWEET CHOCOLATE FUCK DOES EVERYONE IN THE ENTIRE FUCKING WORLD FUCKING HATE ME TO-FUCKING-DAY?????"  So I got in my car and drove to my appointment, all the while hoping I would get an opportunity to kill a squirrel.  But for the first time in the HISTORY OF FUCKING MAN, there were no squirrels squirrelling about on the road.  Because even the squirrels hated me enough this morning to not let me kill them with my car.  Assholes.

Pissed and miserable and ready to crack in two, and not even able to satiate my rage by leaving a trail of squirrel carcasses along Bank Street.  Life sucked.


(I would like to take this opportunity to tell you all that I don't actually drive around trying to obliterate squirrels.  I've only ever run over three, and they were all accidents.  But I do hate squirrels very, very much.  They know why.)


So I went to my stupid appointment and did all the stupid things I needed to do and got some stupid Starbucks and craved a stupid cigarette and continued to try to figure out why everything and everyone hated my stupid guts.

My stupid, delicious guts.

Then, while driving along (a little more aggressively than perhaps I should have been) I had an epiphany.  "Holy fucking shit!" I said.

THE INTERNET.  HAS.   EVERYTHING.

"Holy fucking shit!" I said.  "I'm not the center of the fucking universe!"


"Wait -- when did I start thinking I was the center of the fucking universe?"


"And why the hell am I talking to myself?  Out loud?  In my car?"


"Right -- I'm in my car.  I should probably be paying attention to the ro-"


"FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"


(That last one came when I made a left turn into on-coming traffic at an intersection.  Lucky for me, the guy driving toward me had obviously been taking really good care of his brakes.  He and I have never and likely will never meet, but I'm pretty sure he knows enough about me to know he'd like to punch me in my face.)


I immediately pulled into a gas station parking lot, shut off my car, gripped the steering wheel, and made this face for a while:

Eventually, my eyeballs went back into my head. I started my car, unlocked my knuckles and drove away.  Much less aggressively (with no desire to murder any squirrels) and with a newly-clear mind.


At some point -- unconsciously and without any malice -- I decided I was the center of the universe.  Not the "PAY ATTENTION TO ME WHY AREN'T YOU LOOKING AT ME STOP IGNORING ME" center of the universe.  More of a "Why would you do/say/think that about me and why doesn't anyone realize I'm here and how come people don't understand that I'm just as important as they are" center of the universe.  Which I suppose we all feel, to some extent.  Any given person is technically the center of their own universe.  But I lost sight of that.  Something somewhere in my brain forgot that while it's totally fine for me to be the center of MY universe, it WASN'T totally fine for me to expect me to be the center of anyone else's, even if I wasn't aware I was expecting it.  Nothing in those last few sentences makes and sense, but I think you know what I mean.

I felt this post was getting too serious and thought it would be funny to put this here. 

There's a poet named Heather Darling-Cortes who wrote a poem (obviously) with this line: "To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world."  You would think the important part of that would be the second half, and maybe you're right.  (You're not.  You're wrong.)  It's the FIRST half that's important.  "To the world you may be one person."  Yes.  That's exactly what you are.  That's what I am.  That's what we all are.  We are all just one damn person, and we're never going to be nearly as important to anyone else as we are to ourselves.  And that is okie fucking dokie.

There is nothing on the Internet that says 'okie fucking dokie.'  But there is this, and it has 'jackers' in it, and that is funny.

It's fine that we're all just one person to the world.  What the hell else are we supposed to be?  Even if you find your true love and spawn many younglings and have a bazillion-zillion friends, you will NOT be as important to any of them as you are to yourself -- or vice versa.  Doesn't mean they don't care about you or you don't care about them.  Doesn't make you or them selfish.  Doesn't not mean nuthin'.  (Triple Negative.  Remember math?  Remember how two negatives make a postive, then if you add a negative to that positive you get a negative again?  Exactly the same, but with words.  Try not to think about it too hard, because I made it up anyway.  Math makes my brain explode.)

Needed exploding-brain picture.  This one seemed good.

This post is getting really fucking long, and I think I've kind of made my point.  Or not.  Pretty much I realized that no one does or SHOULD care about any given person more than that given person does.  If you know someone who cares about you more than YOU care about you, then you're a dummy.

Not this kind of dummy, you dummy.

OR this kind.  Quit being an asshole.

THIS kind of dummy.  The really dumb kind.

And don't be all "Waaaaah!  She called me a dummy!"  I just mean that if you don't care about yourself more than anyone in the world, then you're ignoring the attention of the most important person you'll ever know.  And that would make you a fucking idiot, now wouldn't it?


Thanks for stopping by, folks.  Let's wrap this all up with a picture of food someone made to look like a circle jerk.  

For some reason, THIS is the first image that comes up if you search for 'circle jerk.'  Probably best if you don't think about why I was searching for that.

Dear The Comedian (Like Dear Abby, But Without That Annoying Uppity Bitch Abby)

Dear The Comedian:

I have a job working as a telemarketer for a very annoying and pointless company that seems to think calling people at 6:30 on a Sunday evening will make them want to buy the product and/or service it provides.  Judging by the responses I get from 99.999999999999999% of the people I call, they do not wish to ever for any reason in the history of time buy said product and/or service.  And many of them would also like me to go fuck myself.  I understand that they might have things to do at 6:30 on a Sunday evening such as "spending time with my children" or "reading a book" or "masturbating furiously while thinking of your mother, you annoying telemarketing piece of shit," but I have to make a living somehow and this is the only way I can do that, since I'm a big giant asshole who either didn't bother finishing school or perhaps went to university for something retarded and now can't find a job in that field, because the only job on Earth available in that line of work is being the person who teaches the course at the university I went to, and that person hasn't died yet so I can't have their job.  What can I do to make potential customers buy the shit I'm trying to sell?

Signed,
Just Wants to Talk About the Sale We Have on Right Now


Dear Just Wants to Talk:


Kill yourself.


Signed, 
The Comedian








Dear The Comedian:

I am a douchebag who stands near the bus stop outside the mall, trying to pick up women.  I use great lines such as "Hay bayby" and "Due yoo wanna tuch it?"  I am so obviously stupid that when I speak, people can hear the spelling mistakes I would make if I were writing the words down instead of saying them aloud.  Once -- it was a Friday, I think -- I had a shower.  I even almost used soap.  No matter how hard I try or how many times I grab my junk through my grey track pants and shake it in the direction of a pretty girl, I never get any action beyond stuffing my dick into the vacuum when I get home.  It's a good thing I've never used the vacuum to actually clean my floors, or I might get some sort of STD.  I know you can't get STDs from plain old floor-dirt, but sometimes my roommate Ted whacks off and leaves his spew on the floor, and if I vacuumed up his spew and then got it on my dick while it was stuffed in the vacuum, I might get the herpes Ted has. Can you tell me what I need to do to finally meet a girl who will let me stick it in her?

Signed,
Dirty Douchebag with Brown Stuff in His Teeth and Half a Boner At All Times


Dear Dirty Doucebag:


Kill yourself.


Signed, 
The Comedian



Dear The Comedian:

I live in a townhouse complex surrounded by normal people, but I am a giant ass-zit who plays really loud music of such compelling genres as "Death Metal" and "Cats in a Blender."  Sometimes I play it during the day and drive everyone nuts, and sometimes I play it at night and drive everyone nuts.  I don't understand why my neighbours all refer to me as "Dick Face" and "Shut Up You Piece of Shit" and "I Hope You Die in a Fire."  I have a bicycle that only looks like it's been hit by trucks seven or eight times max, and I'm pretty much only 97% physically repulsive.  I suppose if you saw me from a distance and the sun was shining in your eyes and I was facing away from you, you might think I was OK-looking.  I'm not, though.  I have no redeeming qualities and I should probably move away and leave all these nice people alone.  My question for you is: would you like to come over tonight and listen to some death metal with my in my basement?  I am very lonely, since I am such a useless pile of balls.

Signed,
Death Metal Rules and I am Very Cool Because I Like It



Dear Death Metal:


Kill yourself.


Signed,
The Comedian

If you have a question for The Comedian, please send it (along with a self-addressed stamped box large enough to hold whatever dead animal I decide to mail back to you) to:

The Comedian Hates You

123 You Fucking Suck Avenue

I Hate Your Gutsville

Canada

H8T Y0U