Note: this is the 2nd and final installment of the Kandy Karma saga. If you haven’t already, please read Part 1 first.
Previously, on the Point of the Story: the sun seemed to be shining on the dog’s ass, so to speak…
Part II
And the sun did indeed shine that fateful brisk day in 1990. It was November 2nd–a Friday–and my class had a field trip planned for that day. After a few frames at the local bowling alley, we headed to the nearby park for playing and lunch.
This being only 2 days after scoring a massive amount of kiddy blow, I still had ample supply in my grocery bag. And I did what any 9-year-old successful criminal would have done.
I got cocky.
I’m not sure if it was out of generosity, bragging, or an attempt to buy friends, but I brought my whole cache of treats along for the ride.
Once we got to the park, we left all of our lunches at a covered picnic table and went off and played for an hour or so.
When I came back, I couldn’t locate the grocery bag. I had just misplaced it…right?
It quickly turned into one of those scenes from America’s Most Wanted or Unsolved Mysteries where they recreate the moment that a careless parent becomes increasingly frantic trying to find the kid they lost in the park.1Spoiler alert: they were abducted and murdered. Every last one of them. It was the 80s.
I turned that place upside down looking for it.
I interrogated all my classmates, trying to find the smallest clue as to the bag’s fate.
I begged for my teachers to do anything they could.
But it was all in vain. The body–er, I mean “bag”– was never recovered.
Exhibit A. A satellite’s rendering of the scene of the crime, Doling Park, Springfield, MO. Also visible from lower orbit: our church and school.Exhibit B. Eyewitnesses say the missing bag of candy was hanging out under a picnic table some time before being tragically abducted by a stranger in the park.
Even to this day, it feels like a pair of knives stabbing me in the heart and the gut simultaneously when I recall that moment. I was heart broken–and apparently scarred for life.
I will never regret flouting all authority that my mother and the church held over me in order to get all the candies.
But I sure as ----- regret taking all those candies with me on that ----- field trip…
WHY, GOD? WHY!?
Oh. Right…
Touché, Lord & Savior. Touché.
Part III
For the last several years, I have had the great joy of living only a few blocks from my mom. I would argue the best part of this arrangement is going for lovely evening walks with her and my elder daughter, especially in the Fall.
A year or so ago during one of these walks, the Elder had asked me to tell her tales from my childhood. As it was nearing Halloween, I decided to tell her the tragic tale of how a pair of ingenious young lads overcame all odds just to have a normal Halloween, but in the end to only have their hopes dashed against the rocks just like they did to babies back in the Bible times. I.e. I told her this story.
As I was telling it in the presence of Mom, all the pieces of the puzzle came together in my head, albeit 25 years expo facto.
Me: “YOU! It was you, wasn’t it!”
Mom: “Huh?”
Me: “You found the candy in my nightstand and decided to teach me a lesson, didn’t you?”
Mom: “Uh…”
Me: “Where were you around 11:30 a.m. on Friday, November 2nd, 1990?!? You were in college, so it would have been easy to sneak over to the park in between classes and slip off with my candy.”
Figure 1. Artist’s rendering of the how I imagined myself in the moment.2Partial Credit: http://digitalevidencegroup.com/trial-presentation/, Google MapsExhibit C. Most abducted children are taken by someone they know. Google Maps shows that we cannot rule out the possibility that my candy was abducted by someone I knew all too well.
Mom: “No…”
Me: “It’s Vanilla Ice and M.C. Hammer all over again! You had a habit of slyly taking the things that brought us boys joy and then pretend like they never existed. It matches your M.O. perfectly!”
Mom: “Well, actually…”
Me: “CASE CLOSED!!!”
Mom: “This is the first I’m hearing about any of this.”
Me: …
Me: “GOD DAMMIT. After all I’ve been through, can’t a boy at least have some closure?”
Karma is ----- real, I tell you. And that ----- never forgets.
Note: this is the 1st installment of the Kandy Karma saga. If you have already read this, please feel free to skip to Parts 2 & 3.
Free candy?
Socially-sanctioned dress-up playtime?
No age restrictions?
On it’s face, Halloween seems like a deal too good to be true.
And if there’s one thing I’ve learned from attempting to be my own ----- boss is that everything costs something. Everything. Let’s not be naive here. Halloween surely isn’t somehow a miraculous exception to this.
So…what is the true price of Halloween? And, ninja, please, don’t answer with “your soul.”
The Good E’en before All Hallows Day seems to always find a way to bite those who partake firmly in the ass. Perhaps that should be expected, given that it is essentially an exercise in sacreligion?1It’s a weak pun. Get it? Sack, as in the sack of candy in which you collect your treasure. Nevertheless, we persist.
Typically the Revenge of H is in the form of sugar-induced bellyaches and premature trips to the dentist for the kiddos, while later in life, it is often run-of-the-mill hangovers and the realization that there is almost assuredly photographic evidence of your cross-dressing2See: Exhibit A (if only it were the only one…). escapades–you just don’t know who has said evidence.
You know, regrettable-but-mostly-forgettable type stuff.
Every now and then, though, like a razor-blade stuck in a free apple, the pain cuts a little deeper and gets stuck in your throat…
The Fall of 1990 found my mom, my brother 1SkinnyJ, aka 1SJ, and myself in our second year of a grand adventure living in Springfield, Missouri.3See also: A Most Excellent Life Lesson. The previous year, we had moved there from dusty-ass Kansas so Mom could work towards a degree at Baptist Bible College.
Figure 1: I’m just going to just preempt all y’all haters… (Original source:4Napoloean Dynamite (2004), GIF source:5https://giphy.com/gifs/KWfhruKxPtQPK)
I would posit that the hallmark of this “adventure” was that our lives were All Things Jesus throughout our time there.
Church. School. College. Sunday mornings. Sunday evenings. For some ----- reason, Saturday mornings.
And, Wednesday evenings.
Not only did we have a mandatory church service on Wednesday evenings, we usually had to go to Awanas Club6For the curious: https://www.awana.org/us-curriculum/elementary/tt/ beforehand. If you’re not familiar with Awanas, it’s basically just Boy/Girl Scouts having a love-child with a Sunday School teacher.
That year I was in 4th grade and 1SJ was in 6th, so, unfortunately, we both were involuntarily committed to Awanas. Inconvenient in general, but nothing more burdensome than all the other time-sucks from that period in our lives.
Now, the previous year, in 1989, our church, ye ol’ Baptist Temple, though eschewing all things of the devil, was kind enough to host a Fall Festival to give us sanctified children an alternative to the pagan rituals being performed in the Outside World. Despite it being indoors, it had all the other trappings of Trick-or-Treating. Namely, a shit-ton of candy.
In 1990, however, the stars misaligned and ----- us all over.
Figure 2. October 1990. Might as well be the end of the Mayan calendar.
Just take a good look at Figure 2 and tell me why this particular October is more terrifying than any other October.
You are indeed correct: the winning answer is, “But if Awanas and church already have Wednesdays booked, then how–? But what about–? But, candy…BUT WHAT ABOUT THE CANDY!?!”
For some reason the pricks at Baptist Temple just decided to have Awanas and church as normal, and pretend like nothing fun was happening outside. And we wonder from whence arises religion’s reputation of being a bunch of sadists. Better call Robert Stack, cuz it’s a real Unsolved Mystery.
Anyways, this calendaric catastrophe was further compounded by the fact that Mom was a bit of an expert in health-nuttery, so us boys were sugar-deprived the whole time we lived with her. So it wasn’t like we had any other decent sources of sweetness–just whatever we could acquire on holidays.
Halloween was to us what Valentine’s Day is to a florist: all the action only really happens one day out of the year.7I’ll refrain from deriving any humor out of this phrase in the context of marriage…
Now I don’t remember who’s idea it was–1SJ‘s on account of him being the Lead Instigator, as per usual, or mine as I’m a born problem-solver–but it being 1990, we could not let that aggression stand…man.8https://youtu.be/KjdKAYBbeZk
Our plan was fairly simple: ditch Awanas for a quick round of Trick-or-Treating, then make it back to church for the regular service. No problem, right?
Well, it wasn’t that simple. First, we had no transportation. Fortunately, that was no problem, since we lived a couple of blocks from church so we would be just fine being on foot.
The real quandary was procuring costumes. We had zero resources for acquiring anything, yet we had too much pride to go as a couple of poor-ass kids.
Though a few years my elder, 1SJ and I pretty much looked the same age most of our shared childhood. Even more importantly, we looked like a pair of kids straight outta Children of the Corn.9In retrospect, that’s probably what we should have said we were, but I’m not sure we were aware of that cultural reference at that age.
Wait a second–my fact-checker is trying to get my attention.
[Please hold…]
J.K. Kidding–it turns out I’ve been citing the wrong movie most of my life. Village of the Damned is the right movie.
Regardless of which movie we looked like we were out of, the best we could come up with was to go as “twins,” though in the moment we thought it was only slightly less lame than the default, going as Children of the Thrift Store.
So, while we didn’t have any proper equipment at all, what we did have was the sheer will to get our share of the sugars. Channelling our inner MacGyvers, we rustled up a couple of dark turtlenecks and a few paper grocery bags. It was game time, baby.
Figure 3. 1SJ (Left) and me (Right), as depicted in a 1995 recreation of our clandestine Halloween mission. (Source: 10https://youtu.be/puwr-E-q1bk?t=119, from Village of the Damned (1995).)
As dusk fell, we pretended to head off to Awanas, and after screwing around for 15 minutes or so, back-tracked to the house to get our gear.
It was time to hit the neighborhood.
And hit it we did.
While we feared that we might even be denied goodies for not having good enough costumes, it turns our that going as twins worked 20x better than we could have imagined. In the 10 or so instances when we were asked what we were, almost every time our answer “twins” was met with incredulity–no one could believe that we weren’t twins for real!
We raced from house to house, trying to squeeze every ounce of the precious minutes before we had to get back in time for the regular church service. Despite having a very narrow window of opportunity, we sure the hell got our lack-of-money’s worth.
We rushed back to the house to drop off our illicit goods before scurrying back over to the church, without Mom being any the wiser–we had pulled off the Great Confectionary Heist of 1990 without getting our butts busted!
Later that night, we took inventory and realized that we had made bank on the night. Sweet, sweet bank.
Each grocery bag was well over half full. Now remember, these were paper grocery bags, so it was quite the haul. We would be set until almost Thanksgiving.
On our thieving honor, we promised the other to discretely stash the goods in our nightstands and only dig into them when Mom was out of the house. She must never find out, lest she rob of us our spoils and administer a pair o’ whoopins.
In the end, religion and socio-economic status weren’t enough to hold these bad boyz down. We had planned and executed the perfect crime and got away with it. So yeah…life was good.
I mean, hell, the Universe was literally making it rain candy down on us.
I guess it’s as they say, “the sun’s gotta shine on the dog’s ass every now and then!”
Oh, and remember how I mentioned “All Things Jesus“? I came across this bit o’ internet gold11Source:https://www.pinterest.com/pin/187040190747083190/ when I was verifying that I had my “dog’s ass” idioms straight:
Figure 4. He’s always watching you…
Who says there isn’t a Cosmic Force with a sense of humor?
Autumn is my favorite time of year for many reasons, but I think taking my annual trip(s) to the North Carolina State Fair is in the Top Two of my favoritest reasons.
With this year’s fair in full swing it seems like Nothing Could Be Finer1This is the NC State Fair’s slogan. Year in, and year out. It kinda feels like GroundHog Day… than regaling you with a random collection of my fair-related thoughts.
A trip to the State Fair can be an exciting adventure, especially when it comes to trying new food and riding thrilling rides.
But the quickest way to ruin all the fun is going with a large group. Whew boy, did I learn that the hard way the first year I went with my in-laws with our 6-month-old in tow.
It didn’t help that I’m a planner and my wife’s kin are more of the improvisational type. While the details of that episode don’t make for a very interesting narrative, I just want to say: Good News, Everybody! We’re still married 6 years after that incident.
Now, we could have saved ourselves much strife had I listened to the Boss Lady’s wise suggestion of just her and I coming back a separate night. Yet it wasn’t until the next year that we made another date-night like trip so we could enjoy the evening vibe of the Fair.
It was two years ago, though, with the Boss Lady 8 months pregos, that I stumbled upon a truly magical formula. Just like the time I met up with a friend for lunch at Chick-Fil-A and he ordered two sandwiches, the possibility of taking as many trips to the Fair as I ----- well pleased was a mind-blowing revelation. I fancy myself to be fairly open-minded, so I’m not sure why it took so long in either case to realize what seems obvious in retrospect.
I took three trips that year: once with my 4-year-old daughter, once with the Boss Lady, and once with my gluten-sensitive mother.
The beauty of the multiple trips is that I didn’t have to act so insecurely–yes, it is possible for a grown-ass man to act that way–about doing the things I wanted to do and trying the tasty foods I wanted to try. It was a rather liberating experience.
The best part was that I could focus on making sure my current companion enjoyed her time as much as possible, on account of my bucket-list being 1/3 of its original size.
So to bring the boring part of this post to a close, my main two fair-going tips are:
Two’s company and three’s a crowd: take multiple trips if possible to keep your party size to a minimum. Trying to make everyone happy usually ends up with no one being happy.
Make a plan with a map in hand. Fair technology usually lags behind the rest of society, but they’re starting to catch up. Still, I wouldn’t rely on the false promises of a Fair-provided smart phone app. Sort out the top 3 foods and top 3 attractions that you really want to hit up, and make sure you have a real good idea of where to find them. DO THIS BEFORE YOU GO–actually at the Fair is not the time nor place to prove your wild-goose chasing skills
I think what I love the most about the Fair is that Nothing Could Be Finer than the level of People Watching that it has to offer. If you ever fear that you might be living inside of a bubble, there’s nothing like a State Fair to re-educate you.
There are several games you can play here, and can be even more fun with a partner.
My personal favorite is assessing the “economics of couples,” for lack of a better term.
Questions to ask:
Do they look like they belong together?
Which one is out of their league?
Which one is settling?
Perhaps they are well-matched and/or deserve each other?
Relationships, whether we want to admit it or not, are largely transactional. If there seems to be a noticeable relational economic imbalance, try to imagine what hidden variables there might be that could make that particular pairing make more sense.
A sampling of theorems:
Is he packing some serious heat in his pantalones?
Alcohol.
Alcohol-induced kid.
Does he make a lot more money than he looks like he does?
Perhaps personality does matter?
Unreliable contraception.
Maybe the classic “light vehicular manslaughter/blackmail” combo?
The only limit is your imagination!
Another fun activity is taking turns pointing out random people and trying to guess, on a scale of 1 to 10, what level of executive function they possess. Do they appear to have a history of making good life choices? Or, are the like one hapless chap I encountered last year…
I had gone to use the restroom, and was doing my thang at the long row of urinals when in walks a young guy holding a hot dog in one of those coffee-filter-like hot dog napkin/holders.
He steps up to the urinal, and I can’t help but notice out of the corner of my eye that he is hesitant about something. I recoiled in horror as I realize that he decided that he had no choice but to put his hot dog on the floor by his feet while he whizzed only inches above.
I watched him as finished his business, shook off the PVD,2Post-void drip, because I know you were wondering. retrieve his dog from the ground, and take a bite on his way out the door.
I keep running that series of unfortunate events through my mind, re-contextualizing it as one of those “Noooooooo!” scenes from an action/war movie where a character lunges towards the bomb/grenade in a last milli-second attempt to advert explosive disaster.
Figure 1. How I fancy myself saving that young dude from his pee-pee hot dog. A: Total Recall style. B: Doin’ it like Derek (Zoolander). C: I could only hope to match Nic Cage’s dramatic flair, seen here in The Rock.
I feel like it was a moral failure on my part letting him eat that hot dog. Had I been quick on my feet (and on the zip), I should have smacked it out of his hands before…ugh, I can’t even type it without having to choke down a little bit of vomit. Anyways, in this alternate universe in my head, I would have also kindly bought him a replacement one.
…’cuz if your life is such that you’re going to piss on your hot dog and still eat it, you deserve every ounce of compassion I can mustard up.
I find that I often get lost in my own head when People Watching. Well, maybe it’s more akin to the Five Stages of Grief. Therefore, I present to you The Six Stages of People Watching:
Stage 1: Shock. Remember what I said about stepping outside your bubble? I mean, holy shit, though. There are some specimen that I’m stunned to discover that they even exist. You know, people that I never imagined possible. And I’m always amazed by the incredible diversity…of white people, in particular.
Stage 2: Gratitude. In a brief moment of clarity, I’ll have a fleeting thought of just how ----- fortunate I am. No, I’m not saying that everyone at the Fair is a bunch of sad sacks. Rather, it’s just that when I behold the spectrum and distribution of all the human experiences represented at the Fair, it is clear that in spite of perceived imperfections, my lot in life has been more than most people could ever hope for. It’s a humbling experience.
Stage 3: Disappointment. While I actually had a decent chance of finding “my people” on the Fairy Farm,3See: Finding Yourself on the Fairy Farm. there ain’t no way in hell I’m going to find them in the cultural haystack that is the Fair. Or, more likely, I would find them but not realize it because I would be in too much denial, saying “NO. I am nothing at all like that guy…who is essentially my doppelganger in both body and character…who also has a half-Asian honey hanging off his arm…why is she even with that chump…wait a minute…uh, let’s just move on to judging the next couple.”4Goddamn you, Funhouse Mirrors.
Stage 4: Condescension. If you’ve read enough of my musings around here, you know that I often implore all y’all of us to be non-judgemental in spirit.5See, for example, Lawnmower Man or A Pound Casual AssHat. Understand that most of the time, I’m preaching at myself. My ability to be a judgy pompous ----- is usually limited in scope under normal circumstances. But get me on some fairgrounds and you best stand back, or else you’re going to be feeling a gust of my air of superiority to yo’ face. If I were to enter into a mockery skills competition at the Fair, I no doubt would be taking home a Best in Show ribbon. There’s just too many opportunities to pass up…
Stage 5: Self-loathing. Without fail, I will achieve some unwelcome self-awareness in the midst of Stage 4. It’s never fun to realize how shitty you really can be.
Stage 6: Acceptance. Eventually I find some stasis, and learn to live with myself. The key is to acknowledge that, like everyone else I’ve encountered during my excursions to the Fair, I too am a complex and nuanced mixed bag of goodies, worthy of at least a little bit of self-grace.
I’ll end this with a tale that I guess technically falls under the People Watching motif.
First off, it needs to be understood that I’m a borderline cheapskate, so the fact I’m able handle all the wastes of money that the Fair has to offer is an accomplishment in and of itself. I’ve learned to relax and blow a little dough on the foods, but I’m still pretty resistant to spend money on rides, games, or other such non-sense.
Several years back, the Boss Lady and I were enjoying a rare baby-free evening at the Fair, when we found ourselves romantically wandering to no place in particular.
Passing through the Midway, we saw several Ripley’s-Believe-It-Or-Not type mini-attractions. The World’s Tallest Horse, the Bearded Lady–largely scoffable stuff like that. “There may be a sucker born every minute, but you mother ----- aren’t getting a dollar out of me!” I proclaimed loudly in my head.
We came across the World’s Tiniest Woman, advertised to be something like only 2 feet tall. For some reason, we said “Screw it! It’s worth $1 each to call their bluff!” We each paid our dollar, and filed in and around to where this tiny human being was supposed to be.
Now, I really don’t know what I was expecting. Maybe some sort of obvious and cheap optical illusion using mirrors and lenses? I’m not sure.
But when I came around the corner, I guess I wasn’t expecting to see a real live woman.
Yet, laying in a basket was a real live woman.
She seemed to have some genetic disease and appeared to have severely stunted growth, but nothing like the to-scale tiny person with tiny head, etc. that I thought they were advertising. Oh, and I believe she was an amputee to boot6No pun intended.–which I kinda felt like was cheating a bit. After all they said tiniest, not shortest.
Anyways, when I came around that corner, I found myself unexpectedly making direct and deep eye contact with her.
I think it would have been a little gentler of an experience if not for that detail.
Honestly, the whole thing was a shock. She said hi to the pair of us, but all I could do was stumble out of there in a bit of a daze.
We talked about the experience for the rest of the night, as there was a lot to unpack.
Neither of us realized that we were literally walking into a situation where a real person was going to be turned into a money-making spectacle. We simply weren’t emotionally prepared to be partaking in the patron side of a what was essentially a classic freak show. Had we known that we would be implicitly mocking and ostracizing someone, we most assuredly would have passed on the experience.
On the other hand…the Boss Lady made an excellent point that she (the World’s Tiniest Woman) had the opportunity to make a living for herself, and that our $2 could be seen as contributing to a decent enough cause.
And of course there was the whole issue of making inadvertent eye contact. We agreed that it was one of those moments were the awkward thought dominating your mind is “I don’t know where to look…”
I think we both would have been fine, had we known what we were getting into. After all, if one were being thoughtful, loving, and compassionate, then eye contact is probably one of the most dignified and respectful things we could have given her.
The problem was, however, that she could no doubt see the cognitive dissonance in our eyes, as we grappled with reconciling our skeptical expectations with the reality in front of us. It was basically breezing through Stages 1, 3, & 5 in under a second.
And even to this day still, I’m not quite sure I ever reached Stage 6…
Editor’s note: The original title of this article was“Here is the Introduce of NSFM”, a direct reference to a 4-year-old’s attempt at saying “Introducing…” But, for the sake of sucking suckers in to read this story–present company excluded–it was reverted to the explicit version. As an apology for having to use an editor’s note to tell you about how humorous I was,1I wasn’t. I was just coat-tailing off the kid, if we’re being honest about it. please, enjoy the referenced video if you haven’t already:
Do you ever wonder if George Carlin’s mom was proud of him?
If you’re too young to know who George Carlin was, let me pose that question in the form of a mad lib: Do you ever wonder if [your favorite producer of vulgar content]’s mom is proud of them?
I’ve never understood how these people could say and do such naughty things when they have to know that their mothers will inevitably want to hear/read/watch what their beloved children are doing with their talents. Of course it is entirely possible that they either don’t have a good relationship with their parents or their parents are dearly departed…or both (I’m looking at you, Maynard2“Judith”, A Perfect Circle (2000) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTgKRCXybSM,3https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_(song)).
Maybe I just have a poor sample size of nmoms = 3. None of my mother figures give less ----- than me (i.e. they are all more prudent with their words), but I’m sure such speci-women exist.
Or maybe that’s where they got their potty mouths from in the first place. “I learned it by watching you, mom. I learned it by watching you!”4https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUXb7do9C-w
Pop cultural references to futile anti-drug propaganda from the 80’s aside, I’m dead serious about the gravity of this question. There are countless instances in my life when I’ve been paralyzed by the thought “Oh shit. What’s Mom going to think when she sees this?” It’s a real damper on creative thought and boundless thinking.
By no means am I faulting my mother for holding me back because I fear her judgment. On the contrary, when it comes to people with whom she has personal relationships, she is the least judgmental person I know. How to genuinely love and accept people? With all sincerity: “I learned it by watching you, mom. I learned it by watching you!”
So, no, it is not fear that has put these boundaries on my life. It is out of love for the woman who taught me how to love.
Well, actually, there is a bit of fear wrapped up in there. There is legit fear that things I do, say, or think would break her heart. Or embarass the ----- out of her…though I think it was from her that I inherited the CLOS gene.5The Complete Lack of Shame gene. Which, incidentally, is Completely Lacking in Scientific basis, as far as I know.
Anyways, you get the point, right? It’s all basically the old adage: “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?!?”
It’s been a bit of a quandary for me lately. You see, the more I put my various reflections into written form, the clearer it is that this Viking body6Don’t believe me? Here’s a little-known video clip of me from when I studied abroad in 2003. has the soul of pirate. It’s already been established7See: The Alpine Stranger. that this whole blogging project (or whatever the hell it is I’m doing here) only becomes a possibility once I embrace my inner pirate vocabulary.
Further, I’m starting to realize that my subconscience spends a notable time pondering All Things Ass–both figurative and literal. Perhaps you’ve picked up on that, too.
To clarify, though, it’s not so much “ass” in a sexual/pornographic context, rather more along the lines of accepting our butts as a natural and wonderful and functional part of who we are. Too much of our lives is spent being unjustifiably anal8Yes. It is a ----- pun. Very much so indeed. about too many things. I could only hope to be an agent of change in this world in that regards.9As a reward for reading the footnotes: when I die, I hope my headstone reads: “He truly put the ‘ass’ in ‘ambassador’…“
But to do so, I’ll need to be able to have frank conversations. If there were only some way I could spare my mother from hearing all my thoughts about dat ass…
And that brings me to my second, seemingly unrelated point. In the not-too-distant future, I intend to provide further context for the origins of this blog, aka The Story of the Point. Or maybe by the time you’re reading this, I’ve already written about that. The short version is that it is my goal that this becomes my full time job. I.e. I put in effort, and at some point in time I am rewarded with one or more income streams for my family. Daddy needs to get paid, yo.
For me it’s actually been an energizing exercise to try to come up with as many possible ways to make this a profitable endeavor. It really taps into my inner creative problem-solver, which in turn activates key reward circuits in my brain. So basically…its just my way of getting stoned? Hmmm, that’s not really where I expected that stream of consciousness to flow. Pardon the diversion.
The point of the story is–wait, let me provide some truth in advertising here–a point of the story is, I’ve noticed that several podcasts I listen to offer premium content for either a one-time season purchase or in exchange for a reasonably priced monthly subscription. Essentially they’re variations of the “freemium” model.
That got me to thinking: what the hell do I have to offer that could even remotely be considered “premium”? After much thought, I still hadn’t come up with any promising leads.
But then one fateful morning, as I was dutifully washing dat ass in the shower, it hit me: “Eureka, melon farmers! A paywall is the perfect solution to both generating revenue AND shielding Mom from those things she’s better off never having to hear in this lifetime. Having access to all those things I would never dare tell my mom? That, in theory, could fetch a premium.”
So, as Prince might say,10”P Control”, Prince (1995) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoFuwt12ouE “Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and ----- Girls”, introducing a very special, members-only section of this website, NSFM: Not Safe For Mom!
For those of you who don’t immediately appreciate the humor, I suggest cautiously Googling “NSFW”.
Anyways, I think I have explained the concept well enough for now.
The caveat is that there is a very real possibility that not one ----- person would pay for access to NSFM content. So, I’m going to need some brave volunteers–say, the first 5 to respond–to be beta users.
Beta users will get first-look access to NSFM material that I’m planning to release, as I write it. In exchange, I would like some basic feedback, mainly on the content itself, as well as how much would you actually pay for said content ($0 is an acceptable answer).
If interested, email me at bj@thepointofthestory.com with the subject line “NSFM Betas.”
The current plan is to release NSFM content via our budding young Patreon page. Even if you don’t want to hear me riff on taboo/TMI topics, feel free to become a Patron of the Point of the Story. Eventually I will be adding more PG-rated content to reward your ilk.
Business talk aside, I just wanted to wrap this up with a little note to my mom, along with the other parental figures that I will never ever let into NSFM:
Out of love, you fought hard to protect my innocence as I was growing up; I can only hope to do the same for you as you grow older mature with grace and dignity. Heart emoji, heart emoji, winking smiley-face blowing a heart emoji.
On a dreary Seattle day in May 1992, a brave dark knight hoisted himself upon a giant papier-mâché derrière and spoke truth into a flat and listless world:
I like big butts and I cannot lie You other brothers can’t deny That when a girl walks in with an itty bitty waist And a round thing in your face You get sprung, want to pull up tough ‘Cause you notice that butt was stuffed Deep in the jeans she’s wearing…
“Baby Got Back”, Sir Mix-a-lot,MACK DADDY (1992)
“I like big butts and I cannot lie”–the 8 words that inspired an entire generation. Well, maybe not the whole generation, but at least every boy between the ages of 10 and 14 in 1992.
But what happens when that sub-generation of boys become men decades on? Well, as part of that cohort, I can answer that question for you.
For the most part, nothing out of the ordinary.
Deep down, however, we all have a longing–nay, a yearning–to one day be like our hero Mix-A-Lot, and be able to proclaim to the whole world our appreciation of bubblicious backsides.1Mix-A-Lot implies that his love is directed towards female rumps in particular, but that’s not a hard and fast rule. Like some junior high version of Treadstone, we’re just sleeper agents waiting to be activated.
Now, I have a friend who was also part of this particular segment of the population. Like the rest of us, he had every ----- line of that song committed to memory. And also like the rest of us, he grew older2While “he grew up” sounds much more fluid, I think implying that there was an increase in maturity level would be inaccurate and misleading in this case. as time passed. But instead of following our collective dream, he caved under the pressure of reality and became a doctor.
Wait, wait, not that kind of doctor. He’s not like Dr. Dana Scully from Fox’s The X-Files, who makes ----- sure to let you know that “it’s okay because [she’s] a medical doctor.”3https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvAYnFh0Zdo I’m sure he wouldn’t want anyone getting the wrong idea now.
True, any flight he takes automatically has a doctor on board, but not the kind the flight attendant really meant to ask for when that one guy had a heart attack. They really do need to train them to be more specific. Save us all a very awkward situation.4Okay, this part is NOT a true story. But I’m sure its a scenario that’s ran through the minds of plenty of non-medical doctors.
No, he’s more of the philosophical variety. You know, the kind that actually use their brains in the course of earning their credentials.
He is–or at least was–a scientist.
Our paths crossed when we both were working in the same MRI lab in Honolulu (Hawai’i, of course), developing custom pulse sequences together. Now, it’s important to understand that the MRI crowd has a sense of acronymic humor, at least when it comes to naming new techniques, etc.
For example, two of the key methods we used in our research were called “Generalized Autocalibrating Partially Parallel Acquisitions (GRAPPA),” and “Controlled Aliasing In Parallel Imaging Results In Higher Acceleration (CAIPIRINHA)”. If you were more of an alcoholic, it wouldn’t require me pointing out to you that these are, in fact, the names of two adult mixed beverages.
Clever.
And who doesn’t appreciate a good bit o’ wit every now and then. Certainly that guy did.
Sadly, though, my friend didn’t quite thrive as an MRI scientist. After almost a year of inefficient toiling in the lab, he had finally accomplished enough where he was able to start thinking about making his first contribution to the field (like me, he had previously worked in MRI’s scientific granddaddy, NMR, not MRI itself).
When he started to write his paper, it was pretty evident that he was excited that it was at last his turn to join in on the phonetic fun. If this was his only shot at flexing his creative muscles, he told me, then he was “sure as shit going to make it count.”
Impressively, after engaging in what could only be described as a mashup of scientific Scrabble and a Ouija board stuck in middle school, he was able to come up with a completely accurate description of the work at hand, while taking one step closer to his destiny.
Yes, future scientists, engineers, and medical professionals were forever going to remember him as the creator of “Accelerated Spectral-Spatial Multiplexing And SuscepTibility Artifact Reduction.”
He’s no proctologist, but that didn’t stop him from him becoming…”the ASS-MASTAR.”
Or, more accurately, from almost becoming the ASS-MASTAR.
Enter our boss, Vandy,5More or less kind of his real name. who is probably more worthy of the nickname The Dude than any other alias. Both in appearance and attitude, Vandy was straight out of the Big Lebowski. While professional, having been born and raised in Hawai’i, he definitely had the laid back island vibe, and a pretty decent sense of humor to match.
When approached with a draft of this ground-breaking manuscript–which at this point was basically just the magnificent title and the list of authors–Vandy did indeed get a good laugh out of it. Apparently, it reminded him of one of the monster trucks from the Mike Judge/Luke Wilson classic, Idiocracy.6Watch the scene for yourself here. And of course, naming anything in the scientific realm “ASS-MASTAR” was just inherently humorous.
After getting his giggles mostly out, he delivered the solemn news, albeit while still chuckling: “Man, you can’t name your paper that. But maybe it would work for a conference poster…”
The heartbreak hung heavy in the air.
However, it was evident that that last part of what Vandy said left a glimmer of hope where it probably shouldn’t have.
Eventually the paper was renamed something more appropriate.7Anderson, Robert J., Benedikt A. Poser, and V. Andrew Stenger. “Simultaneous multislice spectral‐spatial excitations for reduced signal loss susceptibility artifact in BOLD functional MRI.” Magnetic resonance in medicine 72.5 (2014): 1342-1352. Mind-numbingly boring, informative, inoffensive–I suppose some people consider those good things, right?
Anyways, in the middle of the process of fully fleshing out his experiment and forming it into a full-fledged journal article, we had our big annual “ISMRM”8International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, www.ismrm.org conference–the conference in the field of MRI.
A condensed version of ASS-MASTAR–with the new, very unsexy title–was submitted and was accepted to be presented in the form of an electronic poster, or “e-poster.”
Now of all the formats available–traditional poster, e-poster, and a 12-minute talk–the e-poster probably had the lowest visibility of the three, as it was pretty much just a Powerpoint presentation that the interested party could click through at their own leisure during a specific 1-hour window.
Even by the most optimistic estimates, that meant that probably a maximum of 5 people would ever see such a presentation. So what better time to throw in a little Easter egg at the end to reward those few souls taking an interest in his work, right (see Figure 1 below)?
Figure 1. The reward for clicking through 29 slides of “SMS SPSP Excitation for Reduced Signal Loss Artifact in BOLD fMRI.”
Wrong.
The night before my friend’s 1-hour slot to present the undercover ASS-MASTAR, Vandy wanted to meet up and briefly go through the presentation together just to make sure everything looked good.
In a textbook example of an “unforced error”, they continued past Slide 29, and Vandy seemed genuinely surprised by what he found on Slide 30.
“Dude! You can’t include that in the presentation! Most people would find it humorous, but there are a lot of Brits with sticks up their asses in this business. I can only imagine them harrumphing indignantly if they saw this. What were you thinking?!?”
And in response:
“YOU!!! It was your idea to save it for the conference. How the hell was I supposed to know I couldn’t take you for your word?!? Goddammit, Vandy, don’t blame me for bad judgement when I was just following your suggestion!”
But it didn’t matter. In the end, Slide 30 was censored.
The ASS-MASTAR would never see the light of day. And just like that–whoosh!–the dream of an entire generation of early-90s 12 year old boys was snuffed out by responsibility and reason.
The point of the story is, it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than ask for permission.
And now, if you’ll forgive me if I seem a bit obsessed with the matter, but as ASS-MASTAR of this domain, don’t count on me every asking permission to speak freely on all things rear-related…
By now, you’re probably wondering who this genius-before-his-time friend of mine was.
His name? Dr. Keyser Söze.9OF COURSE it’s me I’m talking about in the story. Who else is in this ----- world is formerly-ish a scientist, witty AF, and is pre-occupied with dat ass? P.S. #ThirdPersonHumbleBrag.
True story.
Now, like me–er, I mean “Dr. Söze”–you can be the MASTAR of your own ASS with these sweet, sweet yoga pants! Perfect for doing side-bends and sit-ups. Just please don’t lose that butt.
While “he grew up” sounds much more fluid, I think implying that there was an increase in maturity level would be inaccurate and misleading in this case.
Anderson, Robert J., Benedikt A. Poser, and V. Andrew Stenger. “Simultaneous multislice spectral‐spatial excitations for reduced signal loss susceptibility artifact in BOLD functional MRI.” Magnetic resonance in medicine 72.5 (2014): 1342-1352.
OF COURSE it’s me I’m talking about in the story. Who else is in this ----- world is formerly-ish a scientist, witty AF, and is pre-occupied with dat ass? P.S. #ThirdPersonHumbleBrag.
Typically accompanied with a strong sense of identity, this “deluxe package” model of human being knows themselves well, knows their role in society, and has full confidence that they are in the social circle that’s a right fit for them.
Gee, that sure sounds nice, doesn’t it?
As you may have guessed, I don’t consider myself to fall into this category. I’m not a completely lost soul, but I definitely feel like a wandering one.
I’ve lived most of my life in gray areas, hoping to fit in somewhere, while at the same time scared Scheiße-less of actually fitting in. Amongst my cool friends, I’m the nerd; likewise, I’m the cool kid when surrounded by nerdier amigos.
Another example would be that I can’t decide if I’m urban/hipster, or rural at heart. Knowing my luck, I’m actually–heavens forbid–a bougie suburbanite. Egads. Perish that thought.
While I think I secretly thrive on not completely fitting in anywhere, I have a strong desire for predictability and stability, and this keeps my soul restless with yearning for a community to call home.
Not too long ago I was listening to a podcast called Three Questions with Andy Richter. If you’re not aware of who he is, he is probably best known as Conan O’Brien’s late-night comedic side kick. In other words, a funny guy.
In this particular episode he was interviewing another comic. If I haven’t pointed it out before, let me do so now: when the muggles aren’t around to hear, comedians will refer to themselves as “comics”. I’m not sure why I find this so humorous, but I do.
Anyways, both Andy and his guest were recounting what it was like to realize that comedy was where they belonged. In both cases they described it as “finding [their] people”, and how wonderful it was to feel like they finally belonged somewhere after having struggled to fit in their whole lives.
Hearing them talk about it that way made my heart long for the same thing for myself.
And then a surprising thought caught me off guard: “Hey wait…am I a comic? Is that where I truly belong? Is that where I will thrive, live my #BestLife,1Term used ironically. and feel truly alive?”
With all the self-psychology I find myself dabbling in, you would think I would know myself pretty well inside and out. Turns out that there’s always more under the surface yet to be discovered, and sometimes it can come as shock to one’s self-image.
What I haven’t mentioned is that I’m not alone in my quest for this thing called “tribe.”2If you have to ask, it’s a A Tribe Called Quest pun. Collectively, the Boss Lady and I have been at a loss for awhile as to how we could rebuild our social circle, now that our lives are dominated by children.
Last year when our eldest daughter started kindergarten, somehow we ended up sending her to what I describe as a “daycare on a farm that got out of hand.” As you may recall from the tale of Two Lukes,3Since you didn’t read it when you were supposed to, here’s the link. it was a rather small enterprise, dominated by rascally preschool youths and culminating in a kindergarten class of only 6 kids (33.33% of which were named Luke).
Also key to this story is that the farm/school was in tune with an educational philosophy that shares the same name with a certain grape + nut salad. If you’re not familiar with it, I can sum it up in one word: fairies. For some reason, adherents to this educational model tend to be unusually preoccupied with pretending fairies are real.
Now, I don’t have time to go into a deep dive on that topic right now, but the important thing to note is that we were entering a culture that embraced approaching the world with child-like wonder.
While this had it’s pros and cons, it did leave us wondering…
“Is this where we would finally find ‘our people’?!?”
It was bound to be an adventure full of self-discovery.
The first half of the school year was rather unremarkable, but early in January I got a chance to fly solo and scope out potential kindred spirits. The husband of the woman who ran the school was hosting a Dad’s Night Out on the farm, where us dads of the students were to gather and relax by drinking beer, enjoying a bonfire fueled by a previously full-of-life Christmas tree, and shooting flaming arrows at bales of hay.
I was on the hunt for someone to whom I could say, “You look like a man I could be a best friend with,”4https://youtu.be/wIeHb8_-GPg?t=24 and I was my usual optimistic self about my odds of success.
My first clue that things weren’t going to live up to my expectations was the beer.
It was sort of a beer pot-luck, where we were instructed to bring “six of [our] favorite beers to share.” I arrived alongside two other dads and we struck up a conversation while we were putting our alcoholic contributions into the cooler.
Dad #1: “Oh man, I can’t wait for you to try this Dark Chocolate Coffee Porter I brought. I just know it will bring you as much joy as it brings me!”
Dad #2: “Super. And you guys are going to love this rare IPA my wife got me for Christmas!”
Me: “Well, here’s six randoms beers that I know I sure the hell am never going to drink, but for some reason were in my house. I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to pawn them off on unsuspecting schmucks. Enjoy…”
And then as we achieved critical mass, one dad started sincerely asking how everybody’s days were going, and each response was met with a chorus of “That’s great!” “Awesome!” & “I’m happy for you!”
Meanwhile, I couldn’t help thinking to myself “Why are you ----- so positive?!?” Naturally, I found myself having a really hard time trusting them.5Related reading: Fiddy Percent.
It was becoming clear that I was definitely the Negative Nancy of the crowd. Or perhaps the unpleasant truth was that I’m just a big ol’ dick-head at heart? A real dick-heart, if you will.
Anyways, this trend continued as we migrated to the bonfire to continue conversing.
Dad #3: “So I took my toddlers camping in the middle of the summer…”
Me (under my breath): “What the ----- is wrong with you?”
I could hear a couple of other guys within earshot of my comment stifling their chuckles. So maybe I wasn’t the lone “realist” in the crowd after all. That gave me a brief glimmer of hope.
Later on, one guy brought up the local CineBistro,6One of those trendy new cinema/restaurant combos where the bring the fancy food right to your theatre seat. and I guess we were on the general topic of how nice it was. Anyways that must of inspired me to comment on my experience of how luxurious I personally had found it to be.
Only weeks earlier I had taken the Boss Lady there for our most recent anniversary. So, that had two implications: 1) it’s nice enough for an anniversary date, and 2) that evening ended pretty favorably for me, ergo if the place can warrant some anniversary action, then it’s gotta be REAL nice n’ fancy.
But, in my mind, the was an asterisk next to point #2, and for some reason thought it absolutely necessary that the gang understood that there was a confounding factor in my observations.
Namely, Aquaman. Yes, I was smart enough to take her to a movie that I knew would, er, “prime her pump”. I probably could have taken her to the shabbiest theater within 200 miles and still have achieved the same result.
So I suppose I felt innately compelled to share this key detail for the sake of full disclosure. That led to this whole tangent about our insidish joke about how the Boss Lady is attracted to Jason Mamoa because they look so ----- alike.
I mean, when you get down to it, we tend to love no one more than we love ourselves, right? It’s okay though; there’s at least a little Narcisse in all of us.
And objectively speaking, both the Boss Lady and Jason Mamoa are ----- beautiful people. ----- gorgeous, the lot of them. I mean, I think both have the potential to tempt many a person to try to play in both the baseball and softball leagues, if you get my drift. Or maybe I’m just projecting?
Fortunately, that whole last bit was not part of my campfire monologue. Instead, at the behest of an active listener amongst us, I rambled on about how for the longest time we had joked about how we were the karmic universe’s bizarro answer to the Khal /Khalisi power couple (from HBO’s Game of Thrones)…a dream which we finally realized the Halloween just the year before, as seen below.
In the midst of all this, I realized this crowd probably wouldn’t appreciate what essentially amounted to me bragging about how I coat-tailed off of Aquaman’s hotness to get laid. So, hoping that my tales of GoT cross dressing would be interesting enough to satiate the masses, I never circled back around to the original point of the story.
But! I didn’t anticipate these ----- being such attentive and sincere listeners. As I let my secondary story trail off into my signature ellipsis, one of them, perhaps the most positive of the bunch, piped up.
“Oh, I’m sorry man, I didn’t mean to interrupt you talking about your wife and CineBistro with my questions. Please, continue.”
Shit. These elephants weren’t forgetting the story I had promised them. So I decided this would be the perfect opportunity to workshop my punchline for when I tell a tale that apparently is only interesting as long as it stays in my head.
You know, play it off as a boring pointless story rather than an inappropriate recounting of my intimate relationship with my wife (as if talking about it here is any better).
“Hah! You thought story was going to be much more interesting. Joke’s on you!”
That got a modest response from the fellas, but it didn’t take much recollection and introspection to realize that I hadn’t exactly nailed it, either.
This guy was showing sincere interest in me. His baseline was to assume that if I valued the thought enough to share it out loud with strangers, then it must be valuable and worthy of hearing. You got to be one well-adjusted human being to be just flinging around respect for others all willy-nilly like that.
In stark contrast, ol’ Captain Dickheart over here was essentially mocking and shaming him for being an example of an upstanding citizen of society.
Shortly after that incident, I bid the male cheerleading squad adieu and headed home, having had my hopes of finding “my people” crushed under the weight of all the positivity.
I’ve heard that some people often act out in less-than-desirable ways because they’re refusing to acknowledge a particular aspect of their identity or desires.
The whole way back I quietly rode in the passenger seat, with the inescapable curse of unpleasant self-knowledge behind the wheel, a smug grin plastered across his face.
I had uncovered a solemn truth about myself that evening.
No, it wasn’t that I was a closeted comic.
It was realizing I was cynically repressed.7Cynically Repressed was the original title of this post, changed only to avoid the humiliating experience of premature punchline.
March 1997: I was a Sophomore in high school and the Jim Carrey classic Liar Liar was about to hit movie theaters.
My best friend, Phillip K. Ballz,1Almost but not quite his real name. Also, it’s a Phillip K. ----- pun. For the various reasons “Ballz” was choice #2, yet will be used in place of choice #1, “Phillip K. Dickhead.” Sorry to disappoint. and I were so excited to go see it, given that its humor matched our early high school maturity level pretty well. For reference, when reminiscing over this particular story, Phillip K. had to correct me when I asserted that the movie we went to see was Beavis and Butthead Do America. Consumers of real high-class content, we were.
There was one fly in the ointment with our plans to partake in SW Kansas High Society, though: transportation. The nearest theater was in Liberal, a good 45 minutes away, which was too far to drive without a proper license, and if I recall correctly, this lined up almost exactly with me failing my first attempt at acquiring one.3This is a short story for another time. It was an act of great injustice, I say! P.K. was a year younger than me, and maybe had his learner’s permit, but regardless, we sure weren’t able to make the trek of our own accord.
However, destiny intervened on our behalf that early spring weekend: premiering in theaters nationwide on the same day as Liar Liar was the Jennifer Lopez classic Selena.
For the young folk, this was the biopic based on the life of the original Selena. Not that cheap knock-off Selena Gomez–just “Selena.” Like Cher, Bono, or Oprah, she was so huge in el Mundo Hispanico4I.e. The Hispanic World that she didn’t need a last name. In fact, I don’t even know what it is without googling it.
Anyways, her promising life and musical career were cut way short when she was shot by the president of her fan club. It was a very tragic story–one that was just begging to be made into a movie.
Now, by a stroke of pure luck, my Caucasian-as-can-be father, Bob J., just so happened to be married to a Hispanic woman, “Daisy.”6Kind of her real name, but not exactly. In other words, I had7And still have. the good fortune of being blessed with a Mexican step-mother. Who was also–and this is a critical plot point–a HUGE Selena fanático.
So you know that sure as shit they were going to see Selena the very day it came out. And they were kind enough to bring along Señor Ballz and me so we could see the movie of our choice. Which definitely wasn’t going to be Selena. But you already knew that.
According to my research on IMDB.com, the runtime for Liar Liar is 1h 26min, while Selena, being of a bit more substance, runs 2h 7min. This jives pretty well with my recollection of the events that were to follow.
Since the movies started about the same time, that meant that our juvenile laugh-fest ended ~41 minutes before our ride home was available. We messed around for a bit, thinking we would only be waiting 20 minutes or so for my parents’ movie to get out, but eventually grew impatient and set up camp right outside the theater that was showing Selena.
We had been waiting there for a good 15 minutes before the dam finally broke. We watched in solemn amusement as one sobbing Latina after another came pouring out, each trying in vain to turn back the waterworks streaming down their faces. It had clearly been an emotional powerhouse of a movie.
And then, in the middle of all that, sticking out like a sore thumb, out waltzes Bob J., with an oblivious grin on his face, like the only thing going through his head was “doot-dee-doot-dee-doo!”
By our estimate, he was the only white person, only one of two males, and had the only two dry eyes out of the entire crowd.
We lost our shit over that image, and it took us a good 5 minutes to recover from laughter.
Of course, Daisy didn’t appreciate the humor quite as much, as she thought we were laughing at all the brown broken hearts (we weren’t).
Now, I’m pretty sure that this memory has been ingrained deeply in my hippocampus primarily because of the humorous cultural, ethnic, and emotional juxtaposition my dad exemplified in that moment.
But the great part of The Point of the Story project is that recollection is often followed by reflection, sometimes with surprising results.8As was the case in A Most Excellent Life Lesson — the twist at the end of that one caught me by surprise as well![/ref] Writing this tale got me to thinking about what we had really witnessed that fateful evening in 1997.
We didn’t see a man comically out of his element.
No, what we saw was a man who didn’t give a flying ----- how ridiculous he might appear in the course of loving his wife. He was literally a walking example of true love in the analog age.9In contrast to what it looks like in the digital age.
Well, ok, so he was comically out of his element. But in the sweetest, most endearing way. I still get to laugh at this memory, right? Right?
Papa Bob–may you rest in peace–thanks for showing me that love can take on many forms; namely, that of a tearless, grinning white man. Which is good because I think I should be able to pull that one off pretty well…
“Doot-dee-doot-dee-doo!”
Content created on: well…it sure wasn’t “23 October” like I claim below…stupid technology.
Almost but not quite his real name. Also, it’s a Phillip K. ----- pun. For the various reasons “Ballz” was choice #2, yet will be used in place of choice #1, “Phillip K. Dickhead.” Sorry to disappoint.
About once a month or so, I accidentally find myself going through my feed. And every time, I’m like, “Oh yeah. I remember why I never visit these parts of the interwebs…” Usually this is due to the fact that it reminds me that, *sigh*, I’m related to certain people.
Well, to be fair, it’s more that I’m related to certain types of Facebook people. I love my large extensive family through and through, but, damn, does Facebook ever bring out the dumbassery/face-slappery in all of us1By using the term “us”, the implication is that I include myself in the group of people susceptible to the negative effects of Facebook. or what? That’s largely why I stay far, far away from even making eye contact with the beast. It won’t end well for my public image.2…which is hilarious given what I’m up to here at thepointofthestory.com. The irony is not lost…nay, it is embraced.
Further, it should be a fair reminder why neither business nor family pair well with politics or religion. I posit that Facebook’s slogan really should be “Facebook: serving up only the shittiest parts of Thanksgiving, all year round!”
But avoiding interpersonal shenanigans with loved ones isn’t always easy. For example, it is typically my own mother who makes me regret visiting ye ol’ Book of Faces the most.
IRL,3In Real Life, in case you had to ask. we have a great relationship. She lives just down the street and watches our girls 3 days a week, and so I regularly see her in person. We even go for lovely evenings walks together most of those days. It’s a real treat, actually.
One would hope that would spill over into cyberspace, but…
LOLNOPE.
I blame the Noise. So. Much. ----- Facebook noise.4I prefer the version of this statement with “Facebook” removed. At least as long as I’m one of the noisemakers…
Even with her acts of digital motherly affection, the Noise is there ready and waiting to drown it out.
For example, if I were a musician and this blog were my heavy metal band, she would be that mom who brings fresh-baked cookies to every one of the band’s shows. But instead of cookies, it’s usually half-baked comments. And instead of me being like “Mo-om! You’re embarrassing me! I’m trying to be so metal here!”, in this analogy it’s “Mo-om! You’re embarrassing me! I’m trying to be so meta here.”
Obligatory maternal embarrassment notwithstanding, I was totes-magotes5 excited when I saw that she was the first to share a post from this blog’s official FB page. I quickly scurried on over to behold it in its full majesty in her Facebook feed. “What would my precious handiwork look like to the rest of the world? Majestic? Splendiforous? Magnificent?” I pondered to myself with giddiness.
I gotta admit, I was a little disappointed when, instead of finding it shining like a beacon, I found it only after tunneling through a blizzard of 13 other posts.
Way to make me feel special Mom. Well, at least as special as your 5 home-remedy, 4 patriot-on-steriods, 2 funny animal clips, and 2 super Jesus-fangirl posts…aka Noise.
Interestingly, I view my writing off most of her shared content as mere “noise” as a premeditated act of love.
Like anyone who is blessed with the combination of an oversharing mom along with a well-populated and diverse family tree, every time I log on, I’m statistically destined to see plenty of content that, um, how do I put this? “That doesn’t resonate with me,”–that’s how I’ll describe it for now.
The trick is, if I can reframe all the digital chatter as mere “noise”, well, is it still annoying? Abso-fudging-lutely. But is it relationship destroying? No. And that’s what’s important, at least in my book.
So there you have it folks. When one asks “what does true love in a digital age look like?” the answer is perhaps…”like the unsexiest beast ever to roam from West to East6Ok, so this reference is a little unfair in that it’s hinting at an unpublished and overly-frank song I wrote (at least lyrically) about the career trajectory of my sex life. It remains unpublished for a reason. Nobody wants to hear about that shit.…question mark?”
In other words, it looks like intentionally choosing the relationships with our loved ones over our own opinions. Even if/when those loved ones don’t reciprocate.7This word will forever remind me of the best (and worst?) Cards Against Humanity pairing I’ve witnessed first hand: “Today on Maury: ‘Help! My son is…’ “ “Not reciprocating oral sex.” You’re welcome.
And let’s not kid ourselves. This is Facebook we’re talking about. There’s no “if”–it’s always “when”, and that “when” is always. What can I say? The Peoples of Facebook love them some opinions.
So the point is, if you want to not lose your soul to Faceboook, be prepared to do a shit-ton of ignoring content incongruous with your personal value system.
Who says we can’t all get along?
If all that seems like an atypically optimistic outlook coming from yours truly,8Background reading: Fiddy Percent. then I applaud your keen sense of What the Fuck’s Up.
Sure, we can reduce life down to little nuggets of wisdom all we want, but in the end, that’s just us doing our damnedest to survive the traumatic and chaotic experience of being human. Reality tends to be complicated. We should never be so naive as to forget that.
Oh, so I forgot to mention that I can be naive sometimes.
Turns out, silence is the easy answer, but not always the right answer–and searching for that right answer can be a tall order.
Every now and then there comes a time when loving someone means having to tell someone else to kindly shut the ----- up. But, you know…figuring out how to do it with grace and respect, because you love that other person, too.
Curious? Then read on, Dear Reader, read on…
[Spoiler Alert: I’m not so sure that I was successful in my endeavor, so don’t get your hopes up too high.]
Facebook can be a real echo chamber…chamber pot,9(TM) that is. It’s a great place for people of all political persuasions to get together and bounce some really crappy ideas off each other until all the walls are dripping in fudge-colored poo.
Hmmph. Well, while I’m extremely proud of myself for coming up with the portmanteau-esque term “echo chamber pot”,10A google search of the phrase yielded only one direct match, and briefly reading over the article, the author didn’t appear to tie it to any particular concept. In other words, Bud, you wasted your chance to lay claim to it. Don’t worry though, it’s in good hands now. We’ll give it a good home and put it to good use. I think the visual imagery is getting a little out of hand. One can employ only so many fecal-centric literary devices in a day, and I really do need to ration my supply for later. We’ll just leave it there for now. You get the idea.
Anyways, let me take you back in time a few months, and regale you with the tale of the time I slipped and fell into one of these so-called echo chamber pots. And, instead of living by my easy-peasy maxim of “Well, that’s just, like your opinion, man,”11This is a Big Lebowski reference, which I have previously referenced here and here. and going on my merry way, I got in over my head trying to be a humble voice of reason.
For those of you following along at home, let me help you paint a visual picture in your head.
The scene: my bathroom, 0045 hours. Me, ironically sitting down on my own chamber pot for my pre-bedtime defecation session.12Thank ----- somebody wrote a song that gives the underrated pastime of philosophizing while pooing it’s due-due: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ur0dAeD4vY. I check my emails and find the following notification from Facebook:
Figure 1. Surely, this message ends in “Mosquite BBQ scent lovers to delight in”, right? It’s the only logical option (albeit misspelled and ending in a preposition).
I remember this moment vividly, as I truly did find it incredulous that Rolla (my home town) would be spraying for mosquitoes. Typically you need still water to have them, and in SW Kansas the only places you find that are…cattle tanks, I guess? I dunno, maybe I’ve suppressed so much of my memories about life in rural Kansas, that somehow it’s not uncommon for there to be a mosquito problem and I just don’t remember.
Either way, it was this asinine detail that I just had to confirm that sucked me into Facebook that night. And even after verifying that there indeed was a mosquito problem in a dusty little town 1500 miles from my current location, I went against my better judgment and continued perusing my feed.
Sure as shizz, it wasn’t long before I came across something that caught my attention…for all the wrong reasons,13Incidentally, I also enjoy our favorite local car sales baron…for all the wrong reasons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t61Hi0_omJ8 this gem of a [re]post:
Ugh. Now I remember why I don’t spend time on here.
And judging by the chorus of agreement from the peanut gallery, it appeared that we had ourselves a regular echo chamber pot on our hands, didn’t we?
Posts like these are a large part of why I find Facebook beyond useless and actually quite harmful. Don’t think that such sentiments don’t hurt anyone. They’re just an early step in dehumanizing the target group, which can lead to much more serious consequences.
And let me be clear: when I say “posts like these”, it is not because it reflects a particular socio-political viewpoint. No, it is the simple fact that it is talking at a group of people, clearly with no intentions of engaging in a meaningful, respectful conversation.
Also, maybe it’s the latent Libertarian in me, but it is really hard to see where people get off perv-splaining. Whatever happened to “live and let live”…mind yo’ own ----- business, por favor. Lemme perv how I see fit, and I’ll let you do the same. And is that some woefully, woefully misguided gay-splaining I hear? I can’t even.
BUT I DIGRESS!
Now, my first reaction was to indignantly respond with something like: “What is this pile of garbage? It appears you know little to nothing about what it’s like to be part of the LGBT community; so *clears throat* if you would, could you kindly shut the ----- up?”
And maybe that particular less-than-graceful response would have been exactly what was needed to be said. There are certain people who need to hear it bluntly and directly in order to be able to hear it at all.
However, there were several thoughts banging around my noggin that ultimately propelled me down a different path.
First, such, er, “directness” almost for sure would have just escalated the situation into a heated digital shouting match, indubitably devolving into personal attacks and only exacerbating whatever differences in opinions we might already have had. Basically, proving the point behind my opening treatise on “loving by ignoring.”
Second, if I was hoping to actually affect some positive change, it would have required a desire on the part of the listener to be a better person. I’m going to take a scientific wild-ass guess here and say that I’m pretty sure that this post wasn’t an open invitation for constructive criticism.
Third, Point #2 is underpinned by the assumption that somehow my definition of a “better person” is an objective truth, which may or may not be the case.
Ok…it’s starting to look like “righteous indignation” may not be the best response. So then what?
Let’s start over.
Well, the Golden Rule is a pretty good place to do that. How would I want to be treated if I were on the errant end of a potentially shitty opinion? What would being loved look like to me?
Yes! I know the answer to this one!
Love is giving the other the space and freedom to grow, with zero demands.14After all, I might be the one with the wrong idea of what “growing” looks like.
Yes, I’ve given this a lot of thought, particularly in the context of what I want–and want to give–within my marriage. Now, if I could only get my wife to actually read this blog…but I digress.
This particular Theorem of Love of mine happened to dovetail nicely with one of the secret ambitions I had/have for my nascent Point of the Story baby, and that is to subtly say “hey, here’s maybe another way of thinking about things. Not necessarily right or wrong, just here for your consideration, do with it whatever you will…”
In other words, it’s up to you to be your own ----- judge. My advice is 100% optional. Well, okay, maybe 97% optional.
So it was starting to look like that just maybe there was a way to out-think and maneuver the Facebook Beast after all.
It was also about this time that I had a critical “Eureka!” moment.
“Holy shit, Batman, I just might be dealing with a pack of #CasualAssHats!”15Pronounced “Pound Casual Ass-Hats” as alluded to in the title. One time the Boss Lady (aka my wife) had an older co-worker who was trying to motivate her colleagues in regard to a particular project. It would have been too embarrassing to tell her that she really meant “Hashtag” when she exclaimed “Pound: Teamwork!”, so no one ever did…and now it’s a family meme that’s being passed on to you. You’re welcome.
“But, BJ, exactly whatis a #CasualAssHat?” you most definitely should be asking, but probably aren’t.
Funny you should ask. It just happens that, in my infinite wisdom, I finally decided to throw in my two cents by providing an example of one, hoping those who needed to hear the message would get my drift.
Also, the idea for this blog had been conceived less than a week earlier at this point, so me, being in my “workshopping mode”16See also: The Olde Timey Wheelchair,17See also: Shotgun Wedding decided it was the perfect time to take the whole “the point of the story is…” concept18A critical component of this is the “recycle my less-than-flattering life moments for the betterment of mankind” motif. for a spin. Really lean into my catchphrase and see how it felt on the typed screen, know what I mean?
“Oh! Oh! Can we see what you wrote? Oh, please!”
Yes. Yes you can:
(Okay, right off the bat, I just want to admit that I kinda lost my thread there and started producing inconsistent analogies involving “ass” and “shit”, etc. It was late at night. What can I say? Anyways…)
So why did I suspect this crowd of potentially being #CasualAssHats?
Because, ’tis I, the King of #CasualAssHat Mountain himself!
You still may be wondering, though, how implying that my family members and their friends are #CasualAssHats can even remotely be considered an act of love. Fair enough question.
I got yet another love-themed life philosophy to rap at ya: loving is assuming the best in the other.
I think it’s far too easy to do the exact opposite and assume the worst in those with whom you disagree, or those who say something that rubs you the wrong way.
Honestly, when I was reading the original thread–and seeing who liked it (including an aunt–for shame!), my thought was “You should know better than to be spitting such venom!”
But reflecting on the experience I shared above, I realized that I hadn’t really been intending to be hurtful toward my classmate; I had simply been too lazy to consider the consequences for others when I indulged in gossip. I had acted like an asshat largely as a result of just being too casual with how I thought of others and how I regarded them in my heart.19Ergo, the birth of the term “#CasualAssHat.”
Let’s be honest. It takes a lot of mental and emotional energy to remain cognizant of the feelings of pretty much the whole wide world. In fact, I have a theory that this accounts for a significant portion of the backlash to political correctness: “Why does all this burden fall on my lilly-white ass?!?”
While my own LWA can somewhat relate to that sentiment, it’s really missing the point. At the heart of PC culture is not so much an onerous requirement to be perfect; it’s the hope that, when given the chance, we’ll afford each other the most basic levels of respect and human dignity.
So just like I would like to have the best assumed in me, and hope that 8th-grade me wasn’t an irredeemable dope rotten to his core, when I suggest that someone might be a #CasualAssHat, it’s a way of saying, “Yeah, I get it. I’ve been there. It’s all too easy to marginalize and disrespect the experience of others without realizing it or intending to. But I trust that you are really a good egg, too…”
Of course, letting AssHattery go unchecked can be a risky proposition. Remember, my story didn’t have such a happy ending; I got a much deserved “shut-the-fuck-up” sandwich served straight to my face.
Let it be a cautionary tale, so the same fate doesn’t befall you.
If you can relate, it may not be too late. You can still own thy shit today…
…and you can also own one of these overly-clever #CasualAssHats casual-ass hats today! Tell the world “yeah, I may be a #CasualAssHat on occasion, but I’m not okay with carrying on that way if I can help it!” Order now!20Or let me know if you encounter any technical errors trying to place an order…I haven’t had anyone try yet, so I can’t be sure it actually work, lol.
Seriously, though, you can buy these for real, and a portion of the proceeds helps support this blog. Please note, however, that what you see is what you get. They literally say “Plain White #CasualAssHat”, etc., so order wisely.
Appendix A
Now, Dear Reader, you have had the luxury of getting my fuller thoughts on how I attempted to handle the situation. But remember, the rest of the world was not privy to such things when this originally happened.
Since, at that time, I didn’t usually put myself out there into the virtual aether in such a vulnerable way, I was actually very nervous to see what type of response I would illicit. Would people appreciate my effort? Would I change hearts and minds worldwide? But first: would they even be able to tell what the hell I was going on about? Let’s find out:
I take it then, “K”, that the moral of the story was lost on you? Also, I’m guessing this wasn’t intended to be a compliment. But guess what? That’s some mighty high praise there, sir, when it’s applied to Yours Truly. Joke’s on you, sucker.
Another direct response I got:
Welp. I guess that’s two votes for ‘no’. But really my first question is: why are people thumbs-upping that comment? Why are we cheering on confusion and delay?21https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EF_68T9H0UM Anyways, I knew I was attempting to walk a fine line here, trying not to be too obtuse…hmm, it seems that perhaps I had overshot the Subtly Runway and landed in the Meta-terranean Sea?
On the bright side, at least one bystander appreciated my handiwork:
What’s even better than a book? A blog–the gift that keeps on giving!
Ok, so this reference is a little unfair in that it’s hinting at an unpublished and overly-frank song I wrote (at least lyrically) about the career trajectory of my sex life. It remains unpublished for a reason. Nobody wants to hear about that shit.
This word will forever remind me of the best (and worst?) Cards Against Humanity pairing I’ve witnessed first hand: “Today on Maury: ‘Help! My son is…’ “ “Not reciprocating oral sex.” You’re welcome.
A google search of the phrase yielded only one direct match, and briefly reading over the article, the author didn’t appear to tie it to any particular concept. In other words, Bud, you wasted your chance to lay claim to it. Don’t worry though, it’s in good hands now. We’ll give it a good home and put it to good use.
Pronounced “Pound Casual Ass-Hats” as alluded to in the title. One time the Boss Lady (aka my wife) had an older co-worker who was trying to motivate her colleagues in regard to a particular project. It would have been too embarrassing to tell her that she really meant “Hashtag” when she exclaimed “Pound: Teamwork!”, so no one ever did…and now it’s a family meme that’s being passed on to you. You’re welcome.
The latest word on the street