Chapter Φ Oh, You’re So Bad! (Buy This Book Or I'll Kill This Dog)

Φ. Oh, You’re So Bad!

People hate pomposity. Be they politicians, lawyers, athletes, newscasters, televangelists, actors… it doesn’t matter, if they’re pompous, we hate their guts! They’re a target for all the jealousy, class-envy, and sour grapes held by the public at large. If they’re rich and/or in the public eye, they’re instantly despised, and as such, they become fertile ground for public scorn. Have you ever stopped to think why they’re vilified? It’s because they’re interesting. These folks ‘push the envelope’ and challenge our sensibilities. Think about it—what have we been taught by our parents since we were children? Be polite. Change your underwear. Respect your elders. Go to church on Sunday. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Don’t pick your nose in public…

Don’t rock the boat. Sound familiar?

Yet, on a daily basis, we’re bombarded with talking-head ‘investigative reporters’, physicians and lawyers who won’t return phone calls, athletes who charge exorbitant amounts of money to sign their name on your kid's baseball cap, preachers who own islands in the Caribbean and seemingly don’t care what you think of them… and there is a common thread among them—they’ll never have to worry whether their families will have a nice place to live and food for the table. Yes, you say, but don’t they know that people don’t like them very much? Why would anyone want bad publicity? BECAUSE IT WORKS, THAT’S WHY! Ask any actors’ agent in Hollywood and you’ll be told that any publicity, good or bad, is golden.

Virtually 90+% of the consumer public exists vicariously through images in the media. You don’t have to take my word for it, just pick up a copy of National Enquirer or Star magazine. Check out the ratings for Oprah and The Doctor Phil Show. Ask yourself a couple of very important questions: Am I willing to chance the vagaries of an unkind public in order to be a successful writer? Am I oblivious to opinions whether or not critics think my writing is pretty or eloquent? Is being successful more important than being nice? Am I willing to look deep inside myself to find out what is really bothering me? Am I arrogant enough to stand up for my convictions and thumb my nose at anyone who says I’m all screwed up? Does the head bone really connect to the neck bone? The questions asked above should make your blood flow faster, challenge your intellect and bring you to the realization that it’s okay to be pompous. If the answer to any of these questions is ‘no’, maybe you should look for another genre, because your sensibilities are more important to you than your craft. You simply aren’t edgy.

But, I answered ‘yes’, you say? So where does that leave me? How do I bring out my dark side? Read on…

I’m going to make a statement that could be construed to be a value judgment, but obviously, I don’t care; my critics can kiss my ass at high noon on Main Street: All edgy writers are cynics, to one degree or another. We’re “contemptuously distrustful of human nature and motives”, we “employ a sneering disbelief in sincerity or integrity” and we “maintain a rooted distrust and dislike of human beings and their society”. I took the definition word for word, right out of the online version of Merriam-Webster, being very careful to give them the credit they deserve because I don’t want you to think that I would use sentence structure exhibited in the above-stated definition. www.m-w.com/dictionary/ Never mind the fact that I don’t have any deep, abiding desire to get sued.

Cynicism buried its roots in Greek society around the 4th Century BC and the patron saints (to use another religion’s terminology), Antisthenes and Diogenes, carried the torch of Socrates forward. The history books tell us that the Greek Cynics picked Socrates as their kahuna because they saw him as the paradigm for self-sufficiency, but personally I think it had more to do with the fact that Socrates was a pompous bastard who knew how to get his point across, an edgy writer... and maybe they owed him money, who knows.

Further, we absolutely wallow in our distinction. We’re proud to be recognized for our discernment of humanity’s frailties and we’d like you understand that we regard you as simple if you can’t see it yourself, therefore we’re obliged to point it out to you. It simply wouldn’t be ‘Christian’ to allow it to pass un-chronicled. To do so would be to allow you to accept the harmful delusion of self-righteousness, and we all know how debilitating that can be.

Cynicism, in its truest sense, has little to do with strict political stances on either side of the aisle, although we do relish the opportunity to point out, to anyone who’ll listen, the folly of closed-minded adherence to any particular political philosophy to the exclusion of the entire body of work. If you’re zealot, bigot or just a flaming asshole, it’s our duty to point it out.

What? Take shots at those selfless public servants who’ve taken an oath to serve us to the utmost of their abilities, just because they keep a little of our tax money, say a seven-figure slush fund, secure in several accounts in the Caiman Islands? Pillory a poor, misunderstood mother who drowns her kids because she’s having a bad hair day? Poke fun at a sitting president merely because the cameras of thirty national and international photographers catch him spitting on the White House lawn as he emerges from the Presidential Huey? How dare I, you say? Put this book down, get down on your knees and pray for my mortal soul, because, sweetheart, you just flunked… you ain’t edgy. It’s nothing personal, necessarily, but you don’t have what it takes. If you read any further, you’re liable to stroke out and that wouldn’t be good. For you, I mean… it won’t affect me one way or the other because I’ve already spent the money you invested in this book and I don’t intend to give it back.

Write this down, it’s important. Keep it beneath one of those adorable refrigerator-magnets proclaiming the beauty and simplicity of Mary Kay cosmetics, the one you’re afraid to take down because your wife will beat the crap out of you, or strap it to your pet gerbil or, if you must, make it into one of those sweet bookmarks that you’ll take to the drugstore and laminate, but make sure you find a place of prominence for it. Here it is: If you insist on being idiotic, someone will catch you. What, you were expecting something a little more prophetic? Sorry, philosophers bore me.

If you insist on being idiotic, someone will catch you. The concept of idiocy, in my context, is a broad-brush sweep across the fabric of social consciousness. I pick no fights with the unfortunate individuals whose IQ’s render them incapable of completing even the most mundane of physical, emotional and/or intellectual tasks on a daily basis. Merriam-Webster might define them as ‘idiots’, but I don’t. My idiots are those individuals who have the capability of functioning in our society without deleteriously affecting the lives of others but merely refuse, or those who insist upon insulting my intelligence with their ever-present jingoistic stream of lies, half-truths and nonsensical proclamations uttered in their idiotic self-delusional belief that they know what’s best for me.

A taxonomic sub-group of genus idioticus exists within the confines of the genera, one readily distinguishable from the other members (in most cases... they're not required to wear nametags, but will someday if I have anything to say about it). These individuals are easily recognizable, although their appearance can sometimes be masked, at least until they either open their mouths to speak or attempt to show us that they really aren’t morons.

Yes, morons… those lovable ninnies who can’t get out of their own way. Morons live in every environment, in every group, no matter how small or confined. If you’re looking for a moron, merely pick up a mirror and gaze into it. Voila! You just found an excellent example of idioticus youmoronyou.

Well, did I lie? Who among us isn’t a moron from time to time? Write about it, damn it! If you’re shaking your head right now and insisting that I don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m sorry, but you’re an asshole. And you’re missing the most verdant of markets for edgy writers… themselves. If nothing else, self-examination will provide a practice source. But, if you insist on refusing to study yourself before focusing on others, I have to assume that you aren’t honest enough to ever succeed at anything more complex than the occasional trip to the garbage can, that your ego deficiencies will continue to block your efforts at every turn. I probably won’t be writing about you, either, because I’m not bully enough to pick on those who can’t defend themselves. This is a watershed moment, folks. If you fit the above-stated description, kindly close the book and put it in a small box. Then, wrap it up and give it as a Christmas present to your little brother, the one who tried to put giant balloons on his lawn chair and fly his ‘ultra-light’ around the neighborhood before realizing that he was at the mercy of those pesky twenty-mile-per-hour zephyrs at 1500 feet altitude that dumped him so unceremoniously on the freeway and forced your parents to put off re-siding the trailer so that they could pay his medical bills. There’s a better-than-average chance that he might understand what I’m saying—at least he might if he ever comes out of the coma.

Do you get it yet? Show us your warts! Why do you think people are willing to become ‘guests’ on The Jerry Springer Show? Trust me when I tell you, it’s not for the money. They need to be recognized, even if it means that they reveal to America their desire to turn their underwear inside out and wear it on their heads, pimp their wife to the geek living in a trailer down by the river, and/or sell their children into white slavery! Jerry Springer is basically a decent guy, I think. But he gets it. He understands that everybody wants to vicariously live his or her fantasies through others. Never mind the fact that, at some level, I think Jerry genuinely thinks he’s performing a service to society as a whole by focusing his spotlight on these morons. I can forgive him his altruistic bent. From time to time, I allow my own soft underbelly to be scratched as well, but it’s usually a private exercise intended for my own gratification, swelling parts other than my bank account. Hell, yes, I’m jealous. Jerry does it right from a marketing standpoint.

However, understand his strategy. He’s getting rich as Croesus by chumming us with geeks and hooking us with our own desire to know that other people are even more screwed up than we are. Jerry creates a feeding frenzy among the demographics that advertisers love the most—housewives and lower middle class consumers between the ages of 18-34 years of age. The show is a soap opera for trailer-trash. Why do you think he’s shown in the middle of the day in most markets?

Why not use his example as a springboard to your own success? Don’t keep trying to re-invent the wheel. As an edgy writer, you need to expose the underbelly of human society wherever they hide, giving them their precious fifteen minutes of fame under the white-hot lights of public exposure. Love me, hate me, beat me, kick me… just don’t ignore me.

Life is short, get over yourself… and tell me about it.