Gwynplaine

An essay about The Man Who Laughs, as performed by Stolen Chair Productions.

***

The Man Who Laughs is my favorite book, and its author, Victor Hugo, is my favorite person. You’ll find out why later on in this essay, but let’s suffice it to say for now that Cock Rock wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for the mutation in the meme pool that is The Man Who Laughs. Well, maybe it would still exist, but it would be indistinguishable from your typical bro website. Plus, I probably would have given up after a few months after I realized writing is a bad mating strategy.

So when I found out there was an off, off Broadway production of The Man Who Laughs, I went online and ordered the tickets before I even knew what I was doing. When you’re excited to do something, you do it as if you’re a machine made specifically to do that thing. This is why having sex for the first time is more natural than you would think.

I bought two tickets because I wanted to take a girl I was seeing. But then, because I wanted my experience of the play to be free from extraneous concerns, I canceled on my date the day before. I was afraid she would say something retarded afterwards, which wouldn’t ruin the play for me, but it wouldn’t help.

I’m telling you all this because, in order to understand my thoughts on this play, you have to understand how seriously I take this story about the importance of being serious.

As I took my seat, I began talking to the guy next to me. “So why are you here? Is The Man Who Laughs your favorite book, too?”

“I’ve never read the book,” he replied. “I just read a review in The New York Times that said it was really funny.”

A positive review is good, I thought. Except the book is about as funny as an abortion. This was my first hint that what I was about to see was an abortion.

In the original story, Gwynplaine, the hero, is a young man who lives with his father, Ursus, and his girlfriend, Dea. When Gwynplaine was a young boy, a band of criminals carved a permanent smile into his face to turn him into a sideshow clown. As a result, Gwynplaine’s mien is horrific yet comical, causing a full belly laugh in all who see him. The trio travels around performing plays, capitalizing on the mangled face of Gwynplaine. Think of them like those subway breakdancers. The story takes place in the 17th Century England, so they probably smelled just as bad.

One evening after a performance, Gwynplaine receives a note from a beautiful Duchess. The Duchess, the letter reveals, is in love with Gwynplaine, not for the best in Gwynplaine—his character—but for the worst—his permanent rictus. Concurrently, Gwynplaine discovers he’s actually of noble birth, and so is returned to his rightful position as an English Peer. Through a drama only Hugo could concoct, Gwynplaine renounces the false love of the Duchess, he renounces the false family of the peerage, and he rejoins Dea to pass on into the next realm, a psychologically higher plane of existence.

With the cards stacked against him, and with a sliver of integrity, as fragile as it is fundamental, Gwynplaine remains resolute against a world out to control him. In doing so, he demonstrates once and for all that his life is not the joke he sees on his face.

In the play, the story’s essentially the same as the book up until Gwynplaine receives the note from the Duchess. Instead of renouncing the vile love of the Duchess, however, Gwynplaine, overcome with rage, accidentally chokes the Duchess to death. Then, chased back to his home, he gets in a knife fight with an English Peer and accidentally kills Dea. I think he kills Ursus, too. My mind was skipping beats by this point, so recollection is fuzzy.

The values of Gwynplaine and the story are not only unrepresented, but inverted  A man of self-determination becomes controlled by forces beyond his control. A story of originality becomes laughably banal. Optimism becomes pessimism. Love becomes a triviality. Gwynplaine’s life, it turns out, is indeed the joke he sees on his face.

I couldn’t believe it. Afterwards, I moped around the city for a while. I walked by the statue of Atlas at Rockefeller Center, because his sweet calves usually cheer me up, but not that day.

When I got home, I contacted the playwright, Kiran Rikhye, to do an interview with her for The Brazen Heads. At first she agreed on unstated terms, but then she later declined when I told her the interview would be more confrontation than discussion. Interestingly though, she didn’t decline because she didn’t want to discuss the themes and values of the book, but because she wouldn’t know how. Her fascination with the story never made it past its “visceral horror,” to use my words.

To use her own words, Ms. Rikhye says:

The truth is that I read the novel once and only once, nearly ten years ago, and I was reading it, not as a reader getting immersed in the story, but as someone who had latched on to the premise, seen the 1928 silent film, and was dashing through the novel the way one would cram for a test. My memory of its subtleties is, therefore, pretty shaky.

She then justified her interpretation of the story:

Whenever people ask me about the Hugo connection to the play, I try to be as clear as possible that this really is just using the Hugo as inspiration, and that we’re certainly not trying to be true to all aspects of the book.

I understand using an author only as inspiration. It’s healthy for artists to do their own thing, jettisoning the tradition of artists past. But what Ms. Rikhye misunderstands is even though she found some aspects of The Man Who Laughs fascinating, she is no more inspired by Hugo than Predator is inspired by the Gatling gun. Hugo was the first author, and arguably the last, to portray characters not as beasts, but as men. Greek characters were ruled by the fates. Shakespearean characters the same. Dante was cast into an unknowable world. Gulliver the same. Tolstoy and Hemingway were glorified journalists. And even Dostoevsky, a man worthy of respect as a writer as well as a psychologist, was too infected by the cold and culture of Czarist Russia to see man for what he is. So it is Flaubert, not Hugo, who is Ms. Rikhye’s inspiration.

The play, it turns out, wasn’t an abortion. It was a miscarriage. Even if Ms. Rikhye wanted to carry the magnificence of Hugo to full term, she doesn’t have the intellectual foundation to do such a thing. Not because she’s dumb, but because it doesn’t matter. Ms. Rikhye is beholden only to audiences and critics who would rather smirk their mouths than furrow their brows.

I’m neither old nor cranky enough to extrapolate this aimless production of The Man Who Laughs into a condemnation of American culture. I don’t think that would be true, anyway. Sometimes it’s simply too easy to get wrapped up in the acting, lighting, makeup, music, and costumes, and so forget why we even have stories in the first place.

To comment, call 646-590-2611.

***

In the spirit of the Academy Awards, below is a list of the best Cock Rock articles for each category. And in the spirit of the red carpet, I’m wearing a piece from the Old Navy tattered collection.

Enjoy.

Psychology: The Bum Rape Fallacy

Chauvinism: It’s Okay to Have a Penis

Cultural Critique: An Open Letter to The Chive

Philosophy: What a Revolution Looks Like

Relationships: What Men Need for Christmas

Irreverence: Heaven is Hell

Concision: Free Van Jones

Cultural Politics: The Medicinal Benefits of Assault Rifles

Essay: The Golden Gate Bridge, Reese Witherspoon, and Free Will

Mania: Every Girl Wants Me

Love: I Love Girls

To comment, call 646-590-2611.

***

Penn Jillette famously said, “I’m such an atheist, I don’t even believe anybody believes in God.” I’ll go a step further: “I’m such an atheist, I don’t even believe anybody can believe other people believe in God.” Yet, one of my favorite things about the Christmas season is not only celebrating Christmas, but actually calling it the “Christmas season.” Most notably, instead of saying “happy holidays,” I love to say “Merry Christmas.”

Of course, Christmas isn’t a religious holiday, but even if it was, I would still say “Merry Christmas.” Not because I really want people to have a merry Christmas—I mean, I hope they do—but saying “happy holidays” or “have a good break” or “season’s greetings” shows you care too much about the wrong thing.

Universalizing the season’s greeting is a second-rate attempt to get along with others. Not that you could actually offend somebody by using the word “Christmas,” anyway. Nobody’s that weak, not even the people who claim to believe that other people believe in God.

If I lived in Africa, I wouldn’t care if somebody told me “Happy Kwanzaa.” I get it. You’re not trying to offend me, or where I come from, or my race or nationality—this is just how people exclaim celebration for the solstice in their part of the world. In fact, I would make it a point to love it. Every “Happy Kwanzaa” would remind me that I’m in a different land, doing new and fun things with my life. If I was there for a bad reason, like to avoid alimony, then sure, “Happy Kwanzaa” would make me feel lonely, but that would be on me.

Of course, it’s sweet if somebody says “Happy Kwanzaa” in America. They’re proving a point just like I’m proving a point with “Merry Christmas.” I would have much more in common with that guy than some (dot)edu eunuch who tries to appease everybody with his “happy holidays.”

And if saying Merry Christmas actually does offend people—which it really doesn’t—then that’s reason to say it even more and even louder. Offending people is important. This is why I still use the words “retarded” and “gay” to denote things that are “retarded” and “gay.” If we lived in a world in which people’s feelings dictate how to act, then it’s people’s feelings that are in control. It’s those feelings that make the decisions. And if you do get offended by hearing “Christmas,” or “Kwanzaa,” or even “Hanukkah,” then you’re weak. So we have to keep saying “retard” and “gay” otherwise the weak actually will inherit the earth.

I, like 99 percent of people in the Western World, really don’t give a shit what you celebrate. I give so little of a shit that I doubt anybody could really give a shit about it. But I do give a shit if you hide what you celebrate. If you see me walking down the street, I want to hear “Happy Kwanzaa,” “Happy Hannukah,” or “Merry Christmas.” If you say “happy holidays,” however, then you’re just a gay retard.

To comment, call 646-590-2611.

Bishop Myriel and Jean Valjean (sort of)

Giving is important, even though it doesn’t help anybody.

Last week in Times Square, a 25-year-old police officer, Larry DePrimo, felt a twinge in his heart as he passed by a barefoot bum, Jeff Hillman. Moments later, DePrimo emerged from the nearby Sketchers store with a brand new pair of $100 boots for the homeless man. A tourist from Arizona snapped a photo of the good deed, it went viral on the internet, and then we all felt warm and fuzzy inside. Dickens himself couldn’t have written a better story.

Earlier this week, another New Yorker, perhaps touched by DePrimo’s good deed, tried to help out a similar transient brother. Ki Suk Han, drunk and out on the town after a fight with his wife, tried to calm down a belligerent bum on a subway platform not far from where DePrimo’s moral stunt was captured days earlier.

Like DePrimo, Han’s good deed was caught on camera (and video). Unlike DePrimo, however, Han’s help was not well taken. The bum pushed Han onto the tracks, and Han became a greasy spot on the front of the Q train.

Okay, so maybe Han didn’t make a dent in his subject of suffering any more than his skull made a dent on the train’s bumper. At least DePrimo got through to his bum, right? Not exactly. When Hillman’s family was reached for comment, they made it clear that they have welcomed Hillman into their home many times, but, to quote his family, “this is the life he’s chosen for himself, and we have resigned… to accept that.”

Then, we learned Hillman had already gotten rid of the boots because, “[the boots] are too expensive to have. It’s unsafe.” This may mean he traded them for a blowjob, or it just means he hid them under a rock in Central Park. Either way, he’s not wearing the boots. A $100 boon to the bum economy would cause a riot, just like paying factory workers in the third world $10 per day would cause a riot.^1

So the best we can say about the end result of these two stories is this subway bum is going to go to jail. And all that had to happen was Han had to die, and his wife will forever live in guilt over their last conversation, which was also their last argument. Seems a tad Pyrrhic to me.

With the season of giving upon us, perhaps this doesn’t feel like the best message about giving. But that’s the truth about giving—it really doesn’t help them that much. And if you really want to help others, it takes tons more work than a silly pair of boots, or drunken words of affirmation.

This doesn’t make giving unimportant, though. It simply frees us from having to be serious about giving, and instead renders it exactly what it is: fun.

So by all means, buy presents for your family, help out at a soup kitchen, or just say hi to one of those old, decrepit Jewish ladies you see puttering around Jew-y grocery stores whose husband totally just died. But realize that whatever is exchanged in that moment is going to die in that moment.

Television, movies, and 19th Century literature romanticize random acts of kindness more than they romanticize women, but the tales of these two bums whiplash us back to reality. So just have fun with other people. And if you do want to truly help, throw your condoms away because you’ve got a lot of work ahead of you.

1. My dad’s friend experienced this economic principle in another way. Last Summer, he decided to pay a neighborhood kid $20 to mow his lawn instead of the usual $10. He could afford it, and it seemed like a nice thing to do, so why not? Well, other neighborhood kids caught wind of this artificially inflated wage, and they pestered my dad’s friend for work and money. Eventually, they just beat up the kid who was mowing the lawn.

To comment, call 646-590-2611.

Comments are for the peanut gallery; discussions are for high society.

Have you actually read through a comment thread? I have, and every time I do I feel like I’ll never be happy again. They’re the dementors of the internet.

Leaving a comment is worse. It combines the aforementioned unhappiness with a masturbatory element. Your comment is as meaningless as a self-induced jizz stain. You may feel good for that split second as you hit “post,” but the build-up and post-comment nap are topped off with self loathing.

So, as you may have noticed, Cock Rock has done away with the comment thread. I don’t want you, the reader, to comment—I want you to have a discussion. My telephone number is all over the place here, so if you have anything to say about what I’ve written—or what any of the contributors have written—feel free to give me a call and we’ll hash it out.

Or call somebody else, or talk to your neighbor, your girlfriend, or some guy walking down the street who looks like he could use an earful.

Not only does this class up Cock Rock, but this classes up society. Imagine if, whenever we expressed an opinion, we actually had to explain it coherently and publicly. In a society in which it actually takes thought and nerve to have an opinion, increasingly more dumbasses will sit in the back of the class and keep their mouths shut.

More importantly, discussions make you a less-weird person. Whereas comments make you a basement-dwelling mouth breather, discussions make you engaged in life. Discussions temper feelings of self-righteousness through confrontation. Discussions are constant reminders that your thought in your head doesn’t matter unless you can communicate it to other people, especially to people who disagree with you. In short, comments are for the peanut gallery. Discussions are for high society.

As a bonus, I’ll record every phone call, so if we have a good discussion, then I’ll post the mp3 at the end of the article of interest. This makes the article an evolving organism, like how the snow leopard grew a longer tail to give it better balance. As opposed to what comments do, which is more like putting four asses on a monkey.

To comment, call 646-590-2611.

before

Tequila Night is exactly what a tradition is.

It started on one evening in the spring of 2000. Four of my friends, yearning for the wild life promised by Mexico—yet too lazy to go to Mexico—spontaneously drank an unsafe amount of tequila. This was the birth of Tequila Night. What is Tequila Night? It’s not only a drinking tradition among my friends, it’s the perfect demonstration of what all traditions are.

This past weekend, we celebrated our 10th Tequila Night. True to form, everyone acted in a way that would sound the alarm at the AA headquarters. For context, here are some staples of Tequila Night.

• A shot minimum, which has been anywhere from 10 to 20.
• A race to the shot minimum, and the routine alcohol poisoning that follows.
• Everybody pees on each other. A guy got pooped on one time.
• Mucho dinero in property damage.
• Dirty mustaches.
• A tribute to Mexican culture as envisioned by middle-class white kids (which seems to give off racist overtones if you’re the kind of guy who looks for racist overtones).

Is it immature? You bet. Is it pathetic? Of course. Is it, perhaps, a little homoerotic? You better believe it.

after

But that’s what a tradition is. Tradition, by definition, has nothing to do with thought, or problem solving, or progress. It’s about doing what’s already been done. Tradition is blind. Add a little emotion to the tradition, which is inevitable, and it becomes violently blind.

A tradition can be useful, however, if the tradition is as ostensibly stupid as Tequila Night. The stupider the tradition, the better, in fact. Keeping in touch with your friends is gay. So when you refer to “keeping in touch” as “Tequila Night,” it’s no longer gay (until you go to a Tequila Night and do something that’s actually gay). Then throw in some scatological humor to make everything that much more memorable.^1

Tequila Night could be even more useful if it was used to show purveyors of more serious traditions just how stupid traditions are. The Rick Santorums who use “traditional values” as a euphemism for oppression. The Eastern healer who kills more people than cancer with traditional Chinese medicine. The traditionally masculine male who acts stoical for such a long time that he’s not even sure if it’s an act anymore. These people aren’t stupid on purpose, they just don’t know how stupid it is to base your life on tradition. And it’s difficult to truly see the chaos of tradition until you’ve got 16 shots bloating your liver, and all you remember is poop speckling on your face as you stare at your buddy’s naked, farting asshole. It’s only when you’re aggressively stupid you can see just how stupid it is to be stupid.

Tequila Night, therefore, as an event that will probably be the death of me, is exactly what tradition is.

Man, I can’t wait for the next one.

1. As such, Tequila is the only rational drink for such an evening. If it didn’t have alcohol, tequila would be used as animal feed. It only exists because it’s funny that it exists. So if you think about it, tequila is the Tequila Night of liquors.

To comment, call 646-590-2611.

proto Slater

Kurt Vonnegut : AV Club :: Victor Hugo : Cock Rock

A while ago, the AV Club posted a list of Kurt Vonnegut quotations that supposedly represent the pinnacle of literature. This is to be expected since the AV Club is painfully hip, and KV is the father of the painfully hip. But I’d rather hear from Victor Hugo, the father of the painfully good.

1. “When it comes to hatred, one woman is worth ten men.

When in a relationship with a girl, it’s easy to get too cocky and walk all over her. It’s fun too, and I’m not saying you shouldn’t do it—just remember that if you screw up her life, she will effortlessly screw up your life tenfold.

2. “The expectoration of a sentence is a relief. The wolf is comforted by its howl, the sheep by its wool, the forest by its finch, woman by her love, and the philosopher by his epiphonema.”

Intelligence feels so good Hugo is surprised it doesn’t give you chlamydia.

3. “Sobriety is a good quality only when one possesses other virtues.”

Nobody cares if you don’t do something. Abstinence, from anything, is one of the easiest things in the world. It only seems difficult if you’re a Christian and cannot do anything else. Sorry, everyone against drunk driving, drugs, and everything else that’s fun. Hugo isn’t saying you should do heroin, but when you don’t, remember that it’s not a feather for your self-esteem cap.

4. “Concision in style, precision in thought, decision in life.”

Modern culture makes the mistake of divorcing thought from action. You can either be a total nerd, or you can be a brainless jock. Either you can get lost in thought as reprieve from an existential strife, or you can take crazy risks as reprieve from an existential strife. But Hugo reminds us that if you make decisions like an action hero, then you necessarily think—and if you think like a nerd, then you necessarily take action. In fact, the clearer and more decisive your thought, the clearer and more decisive your action. Also, you might as well be stylish about encompassing both mind and body. Get pants that fit, only wear gym clothes to the gym, and do this.

5. “A woman naked is a woman armed.”

Chicks don’t realize the glass ceiling was shattered 3,000 years ago.

6. “Sunday being the symbol of servitude, we know nations whose week contains seven Sundays.”

Since slavery has been all but abolished in the Western world, the new slavery is feeling guilty about work and making money.

7. “To be comic without and tragic within, what suffering can be more humiliating? What pain deeper?”

Hugo thinks comedy is good, but only in tempered doses. He would find it abhorrent if he were alive today and saw that it was somebody’s job to do nothing but tell jokes on stage. Hugo would assume the modern comic an indentured servant, or someone trying to avoid debtors prison.

8. “Will intoxicates. One can become intoxicated with one’s own soul. This intoxication is called heroism.”

Dick swinging was just as much fun in the 19th Century as it is now. It will always be fun. Don’t be a douche about it, but also enjoy it as much as possible.

9. “Fortresses, like women, boast of their besiegers when they are distinguished.”

When you give a girl a good reason to sleep with you, she’ll make sure it happens. Don’t be the guy who only gets laid because he knows how to put himself in the best position to get into a late-night, drunken crotch bender.

10. “Reality in strong doses frightens.”

In the same sentence, Hugo explains both the need for religion and why it’s becoming less important.

11. “Curiosity is one of the forms of feminine bravery.”

Nothing interests a girl more than a secret, which is why the man keeps at least one secret in all good relationships.

12. “The irreproachable does not reproach.”

This is, objectively, the best argument against gossip—besides having a life.

13. “Undertakings demonstrate their obstacles and perils when grappled with close at hand. There is nothing like commencing a thing, for seeing how hard it will be to finish. All beginnings offer resistance. The first step which one takes is an inexorable revealer. The difficulty which one touches pricks like at thorn.”

Girls are supposed to say no, and so is life.

14. “Solitude creates men of talent or idiots.”

If you’re not planning on doing much with your life, then have as many friends as possible.

15. “We draw new life from the heroic example. The hero has drunk more deeply than anyone from the cup of bitterness. But his countenance is so unshaken and he speaks such mighty words of cheer that his will becomes our will, and our life is kindled at his own.”

Only say good things about yourself.

To comment, call 646-590-2611.

a picture of racism if you want it to be

If racism is invisible, does it still exist?

While walking home last week, I chugged an extra strength 5-Hour Energy. It was a bad idea. The dose of this drink, this abomination of nature, this waste of money, turned my stomach upside down. I didn’t poop my pants, but I thought I did. The whole way home I was trying to walk in a way that wouldn’t spread my imaginary poop around. It’s like the Farrelly brothers wrote the script for my life that day.

Even worse, for the 15 minutes between the inciting incident and my front door, I interpreted every look somebody gave me as though they were disgusted because, in my mind, they knew I shit my pants. When somebody would walk around me in a hurry, I thought they must’ve been revolted by the very probably poop stain that was on the ass of my pants.

Before, every look from a girl was interpreted as “that guy is hot.” But now ever look was interpreted as, “what a disgusting pervert.”

Before, every smell from the city streets was interpreted as “that must be from a bum.” But now every city smell was interpreted as, “I am a bum.”

Before, my thoughts of megalomania made my alone time enjoyable. But now, my thoughts of embarrassment made my alone time a struggle.

When I got home I checked my underwear, and l was genuinely surprised to find them clean. The emotions, however, were quite real. Anger, resentment, shame. It was quite a trip for me. Always on edge, always interpreting social cues as negative. It was a burden. I would hate to live my whole life like this.

But what if there was no way to check if the poop was real? I’d have to go through life always with a little bit of imaginary poop in my pants. And the only way of confirming its existence is through interpreting cues from my social environment.

In such a scenario, a successful job interview would be near impossible. Every failure or setback I experienced would be demoralizing, because it’d always be about the poop, something I couldn’t control. I would grow to despise people who didn’t have poop in their pants. I would fluctuate between depression and violent anger, either being lazy, or lashing out. There’s no doubt that there’d be a disproportionate number of people with poopy pants in jail, or homeless. I may even start to dress a little like I’m homeless, because why not? All this, and the poop isn’t even real.

Of course, some people do live like this, and I’m not talking about guys who drink Old Grand-Dad until they actually do poop their pants.

At the psychology graduate school I attend, an accepted part of the curriculum is that America is set up to dissuade minorities from an education and success. Specifically, whites, through their culture of white supremacy, inadvertently keep minorities down. This isn’t a point of contention, this isn’t up for discussion—it’s accepted doctrine. Every lecture, every roundtable, every conference is like a Southern Poverty Law Center meeting on estrogen therapy.

(It’s worth noting that this psychology graduate program is ranked fourth in the US. This matters not just so I can brag, but high-ranking institutions do have more influence over others. More academics filter through us and accept what we say more than Santa Monica Community, so it matters.)

So where is the poop—ie the oppression? Is it in the heads of minorities, or is it real?

It’s true that explicit, government-sanctioned racism would indeed make the oppression real. But this kind of racism has gone the way of the 1950’s, so now to keep to the script, my professors contend that racism has become implicit. This is where it gets tricky. You need to be able to read the minds of white oppressors to find out if they are implicitly racist, which is impossible. Thankfully, this is why God invented agendas—so we can find evidence to support whatever we want.

Enter the microaggression, which is the main evidence for this implicit racism that keeps minorities down. A microaggression is, in short and in full, a backhanded compliment. That’s it. This is what has condemned blacks to live in poverty, commit violent crimes, and desert their families—this thing that you probably did a half dozen times today with your friends if you’re a fun person. When you call it a microaggression, however, it sounds worse. Leave it up to academics to come up with a new word for something and think it’s a new idea.

For instance, telling a black guy he speaks well is equivalent to saying black people on the whole don’t speak well. This creates a culture in which we all continue to perceive the black man as a slang-ridden dolt. Therefore, when he interviews for a job with a white guy, the white guy thinks, “this black guy probably doesn’t speak well,” which influences how well the white guy is able to judge the black guy. Whether this is true doesn’t matter as long as it’s perceived as true. Remember, the poop doesn’t have to be real to have an effect. And with microaggressions, intellectuals have formulated an impenetrable proof of racism. Because now, racism doesn’t even have to exist in order for it to exist. If your unfalsifiability meter just pinged, good for you.

Call me cynical, but I doubt intellectuals are spreading the gospel of implicit racism to actually help blacks. First, the premise of the microaggression and its effects is that whites are the only ones who can give blacks power, which is demeaning to blacks. More importantly, minorities do hold positions of power, but instead of studying them and how they overcame an allegedly oppressive system, we study the black criminals, black indigents, and black diseases. Every (and I do mean “every”) race-based research project at school revolves around studying this population, as opposed to the Fredrick Douglasses, the Neil deGrasse Tysons, or at least the Jesse Jacksons. We’re like Mother Theresa in tweed jackets—obsession with oppression has made us salivate at its sight.

I’m hardly saying anything new here. Taking responsibility for yourself in the face of obstacles, both real and imaginary, is what all successful people do who weren’t born with their goals already accomplished.

For instance, every guy I’ve known who’s good with girls has something about him that you would think, “oh, there’s no way he could get girls.” Either he’s fat, or short, or bald, or poor, or he hates girls. They have a good reason to be unsuccessful, a reason to be oppressed—they have poop in their pants. Now let’s say you were short, and you truly wanted to get a girlfriend and not just stew in self-pity, would you study an involuntary celibate, or would you study the guys who are shorter than most girls, yet somehow manage to be wrapped in them? Since there is no affirmative action with pussy, guys are compelled to do the latter.

Say what you want about academics, they are smart, so they’ll come up with spectacular ways to rationalize what they believe. And what they believe doesn’t even have to be real. It makes my tuition feel more like a tithe than anything else. In short, if you thought the race card has expired in America, it’s time to start hoarding money with Al Sharpton’s face on it.

To comment, call 646-590-2611.

a lift six

Why teachers are fat and referees are thin.

Before I did research for this article, I knew little about the two strikes that were recently resolved in America: the Chicago Teachers Union strike and the NFL referee lockout. But I did recognize one major difference between the two. The NFL referees look like they all own a gym membership, and the teachers look like they all own a Ben and Jerry’s membership.

Even though both strikes seemed to occur for the same reason, they’re two different organisms with two different anatomies (literally).

What’s interesting about fat people is they don’t even know how fat they are. The nature of gaining weight makes it difficult to detect. It happens slowly, plus we spend all day with ourselves, so that extra adipose doesn’t register like it should. Here, we’re all the proverbial frog in the pot of water that slowly heats to a boil. We only become wise to the weight gain when a doctor tells us the truth in so many layers of sugar that this alone is enough to give us diabetes.

Clothing companies make fat detection difficult, too, because they artificially inflate their sizes to make people feel like they’re thinner than they are. I’ve definitely noticed this with pants sizes, and I’ve heard it’s even worse for girls. Now, the numerical sizes more closely indicates how many beers a dude has to drink to have sex with you.

The problem is even worse since it’s become acceptable to wear sweatpants or tights, or other resilient clothing, like these Chicago teachers do. Their protests look like a muumuu convention. I’d link to images of the strike, but I don’t want to put those vibes out on Cock Rock.

My male piggishness cannot help to connect the dots here: As the teachers’ gunts grow unobstructed and unashamed, so too do their feelings of entitlement.

Even before the Chicago teachers strike was resolved, they were some of the highest paid teachers in the country, while churning out some of the poorest quality students. And that’s when the students do churn out—46 percent of the time they just drop out. And only 2.5 percent of the ones who do graduate go on and graduate from college. These Chicago kids might as well be born in Kinshasa.

Of course, this sub-Saharan-esque education levels aren’t all the teachers’ fault—the parents are to blame as well. But part of the reason the teachers were striking is because they wanted to continue to not be held responsible for the outcome of their teaching. Excuse me, but that’s not how it worked in Stand and Deliver. More like Sit and Complain. These teachers, as they clearly avoid responsibility when it comes to twinkies, are similarly avoiding responsibility when it comes to work.

The teachers union is like the stretched-out waistband on a pair of jeggings. It keeps convincing the teachers they have high metabolism, when really, they should stop showing movies in class all the time.

However, the reason for the referee lockout was fundamentally different. NFL referees weren’t trying to escape reality—they had no problem being evaluated, or to put it more precisely, scrutinized. When the NFL went out and got replacement refs, the regular refs tried their best to hide their shit-eating grins. They knew what was going to happen. It’d be like if your girlfriend wanted to date other guys, and that actually made you more confident because you knew, when she starts comparing you to others, it’d be no contest. At the risk of sounding like a frat guy, that’s balls.

It’s no wonder referees are half the size of the teachers, even though they’re twice the age. If you can judge your worth objectively, you have a better chance of judging your physical appearance objectively.

Imagine if the Chicago schools were allowed to hire replacement teachers at even 75 percent of the average $71,000 salary. You’d have unemployed teachers lining up to Gary, Indiana, even though they’d have to line up in Gary, Indiana. And I’m guessing they wouldn’t be doing as poorly as the replacement refs, not that anyone would know. As the Chicago teachers say, they’re not responsible, anyway. Why even have teachers? When a school is only graduating 54 percent of the students, it’s basically a trade association for drug dealers.

Of course, the teachers strike is just a microcosm of the real problem. Bloated government workers are the effect of a bloated government. If the Chicago School District doesn’t need to stick to 2,000 calories per day, why should the teachers? Just put on a bigger pair of Spanx and hang out with people who are as huge as you. And don’t worry about being penalized. Evasion is a foul so insidious, not even the NFL refs know how to call you on it.

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this litmus test is so basic

It’s an essential part of the human condition to stop and ask yourself if you really understand the world. “Do I really think the national park system is a good idea?” you might ponder as you’re being lectured on conservation by a virgin-y park ranger. “Do I really think it’s okay to wear cargo shorts?” is another important question to ask if you look like a dork. In general, we’re always asking ourselves, in effect, “Do I really understand the world as much as I think I do?”

Of course, challenging your own beliefs is a total pain in the ass. What’s the point, anyway? It’s difficult work determining if the ideas in your head correspond with reality. It doesn’t pay well, and it won’t get you laid. Just find chicks with the same worldview as yours, no matter how wrong it is.

So as a shortcut, below are five issues, or litmust tests, to determine if you’re in touch with reality. If you have the correct view on all of them, then chances are you’re right about everything else. Even being wrong about one indicates a serious error in thinking—so serious, perhaps, that you may as well have a girl brain.

1. Israel vs Palestine

This is a classic case of philosophical principles vs blind tribalism. The only way it’d be okay to support Palestine is if you didn’t recognize the moral superiority of some governments over others. The difference is: Israel doesn’t want Jews to be free—they want everybody living in Israel to be free, which includes Palestinians living in Israel. The only way an Israelite could live in Palestine is if they transformed into Arabs, which is best done by gluing pubes to your face. Pro-Palestinians don’t see this as the issue because they don’t think outside the bounds of heritage. They’re like poorly dressed Al Sharptons. When everything boils down to racial identity for you, then you think that’s all your opponent is dealing in, too. It’s like when your girlfriend thinks you don’t love her anymore when you ignore her. Girls only know love, which is why they have so many words for it, like “blowjob” and “cooking.”

2. Deficit spending

If you’re in favor of deficit spending, you either don’t know anything about economics, or you know too much about economics and so fail to see the big picture. Similarly, we have scientists who know too much about science to balance their knowledge of what science is, which is how we get deformities like intelligent design. It doesn’t mean you’re dumb—it just means you lack perspective. And if you can lack perspective when inflation, debt, and fallacies are slapping you in the face, then you’re going to lack perspective on other issues as well. It doesn’t make you a bad person, but it does make you a better secretary than a thinker.

3. National Endowment for the Arts

There’s a whole slew of bad premises wrapped up in the support of the NEA. (1) The common man is a philistine who needs to be force-fed art to make him a good citizen, (2) We need to be good citizens, (3) Art is somehow over and above the values of capitalism, and mustn’t be tarnished by profit, and (4) The government is totally fair and only gives money to people who deserve it, as opposed to people who know the right people. I’m sure there’s more. But if you take just one of these premises and apply it to the rest of your thinking, chances are you’re going to be a dumbass, and a pompous one at that.

4. Sex

Any negative view about sex has to be put out of your mind if you’re going to be a good thinker. Weird notions of purity, an atavistic concept from religion past, is all emotion and no logic. If you’re a chick and you don’t enjoy a good bone down, or if you’re a dude and look down on a girl who sucks your dick (not literally, which is inevitable), then you have too much insecurity about sex to properly live and so think on this earth. Specifically, the negative emotions surrounding human sexuality, like guilt, shame, and jealousy, are so strong, that people have no problem sabatoging their lives just to rationalize these emotions. As a result, your thinking cannot be trusted. Unless you get to the place where you seriously start to see virgins as impure, there’s going to be a lot of triggers that cloud your thinking about everything else.

5. The Catholic Church

If you cannot entertain the notion that maybe the Catholic Church exists for itself at the expense of its followers, then you don’t understand the forces that shape our world, like group and leadership dynamics. In general, groups exist to get power, money, and mating opportunity for themselves, even when those mating opportunities make no sense, like doinking little boys. This doesn’t mean humans are inherently wicked, it’s just how we are sometimes. But we do have to acknowledge this if we’re going to get past it. When we don’t, and then naively give a group the power to determine our fate in a supposed afterlife, the worst aspects of mankind will be drawn out, like child rape. Similarly, the worst aspects of thinking will be drawn out, like blind subservience (which is the child rape of epistemology).

Conclusion

There are more litmus tests that determine if you understand the world, but it’s not important to flush them all out here. The point is that the way you think about one thing reflects the way you think about everything. It matters that Obama is squishy on Palestine and committed to printing money. It matters that Romney is a Mormon (or a Catholic^2), and has the sexual views of a Vulcan. I haven’t checked, but both these clowns probably support the NEA. It could be worst, though—at least they don’t wear cargo shorts.

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