Despicable Me

Factory – Band Of Horses

Despite the rash of sports related posts that have come up in the last few weeks, I feel it’s only logical for me to give my two cents regarding the “LeBron to Miami” story. I had actually begun a treatise on the nature of the superstar athlete and modern idolatry. I wanted to paint the portrait of a young man who has lived the majority of his life removed from what you and I consider to be reality. My heart broke upon witnessing the rampant, childish cynicism that emanated from fans, fellow players and journalists when they found out that LeBron James wasn’t going to play by their rules; that he didn’t care about living up to their expectations. This post was not only going to be an indictment of the sporting world, but a call to arms against the negativity that is poisoning society. It just seems to me like people need some help with perspective every now and then. Right, Dwyane?

It’s going to seem like the world has crashed down. You all are going to make it seem like the World Trade has just went down again.

*ahem* Impassioned post now on hold pending further review.

*****

Look, I’m not good with big social gatherings. That’s just not who I am. Allow me to use the wisdom of Seinfeld to explain how I feel about schmoozing:

Elaine: Yeah, well, he’s in perfect health. He works out, he’s vibrant. You’d
really like him.
Jerry: Why do people always say that? I hate everyone, why would I like him?

I know, right? Yet somehow, some way, on the rare occasion that I venture into the party world I end up being introduced to a handful of people who (while I’m sure they’re perfectly lovely individuals) I want nothing to do with. It’s not always necessarily about them either as I hate having to answer questions about my self and what I do and blah blah blah. Don’t get me wrong, I love the sound of my own voice as much as anybody else, just as long as I’m not using it to talk about me.

A couple of incidents rattled me on Saturday and had me questioning how I project myself in public. Before going to Julius’ party, I stopped at the Food Basics where I used to work to pick up some munchies. Nobody I know works there anymore, or so I thought. My old co-worker/manager Harmeet happened to be working the register at the line I was in and before I knew it, she had recognized me and started busting my chops about how I never visit. Apparently, she hadn’t seen me in four years. Sounds about right. I laughed awkwardly, trying to get away from the situation, but she continued to ask questions about what I was up to and, of course, why I was never around. Clearly noticing my embarrassment, she began to speak to the customer behind me.

I used to work with this guy every day and then he quit and we never see him anymore! Can you believe that? How rude is that?

The whole time, I can feel my face turning slightly red. It’s like I just drank a quarter pint of beer. I stumble and stammer about, doling out the usual “I’m between things” schtick and she doesn’t seem to be buying it. Even though we’re both having a laugh about it, I can tell that there is some genuine aggravation, even hurt, over my lack of correspondence. We talk for a couple of minutes and I tell her that I’m late for a party, conveniently forgetting to leave any contact information. That was a close one.

*****

Julius’ house is a conversational minefield as soon as I enter the backyard. I see people who I don’t want to talk to…hell, I see people I know who I don’t want to talk to. It behooves me to get to Julius as quickly as possible, or any other friend that I can stick to so as to avoid having to say anything of actual substance. Everything goes pretty well, truth be told. I spent quite a bit of time trying to flirt with Annabella, which is unfortunate because she’s apparently dating a guy who was standing around the whole time and I didn’t notice until the end of the night. Ah well, he seemed like a boring bastard anyway.

Like I said, I stick to people I know and don’t dislike. With Julius mostly unavailable, that meant it was usually Annabella, David, David’s sister Christina, Danny, Wendy and this girl named Linda who apparently have never mentioned in this blog before despite the fact that we’ve been acquainted since university. Michelle was there, but left soon after I arrived. She knows I hate people and I’ll bet she had a good laugh knowing that it takes all of my willpower to not start committing murder when in the midst of a large group. She’s sick like that.

With no other recourse and with innocent lives at stake, I responded the only way I know how: Jokes. Lots of jokes. Once you get past the “hellos and how are yous”, people suddenly want to know everything about you and it’s at that point that I become Shecky Lee! I make cracks about how I’m an English Major and how much of a loser I am and how my dad is gay and it’s all a good laugh. Wokka wokka wokka! Don’t get me wrong, I love seeing people laugh, especially women, but at times I feel like genuine human interaction is beyond me. A hot babe makes eye contact and before you know it I’m a pair of fucking Groucho glasses.

After everything settled down, Linda, Annabella and a couple of dudes decided we should watch a movie. I ended up being Linda’s chauffeur for the night, which wasn’t a problem for me except for the terrifying fear that grips me whenever I’m a) driving with someone I don’t know that well and b) driving around an area I don’t know that well. We chitted and chatted and it was enjoyable if I’m being perfectly honest. She mentioned how we’d never really spoken before and I responded with my usual canned, self-deprecating response: Well, now you can see that you weren’t missing much. I don’t remember her laughing.

After watching Despicable Me (see what I did there?), I took Linda back to her place and we spent some time dipping our feet in the pool in her apartment. The atmosphere was undeniably romantic and any normal man would surely have gotten at least a BJ that night, but, dear reader, you know that I am the World’s Most Dickless Man so obviously nothing of the sort happened. Instead, I couldn’t seem to stop…acting like such…a fucking…BITCH. I’m not saying she was all over me or anything, but again, a modestly charming guy could have made something of the…situation. I’m not going to lose sleep over it. She’s a nice girl and I’m thinking I might call her again sometime soon.

What really bugged me was that she told me she thought I was an asshole. Okay, that’s not exactly the word that she used but unbeknownst to me I had been ignoring her whenever she spoke to me in the past. In my defense, she apparently thought that my name was “Charles” (I could pull that off) for the longest time, so I’m only partially to blame.

Regardless, the point of this story and this whole post is this: I have a simple theory. Every person has three major aspects.

Who we are, which has a lot to do with how other people see us whether we realize it or not.
Who we think we are, which has a lot to do with how we see other people whether we realize it or not.
Who we want to be, which only comes out in our best moments.

I clearly have a lot of work to do on all three counts.

*****

In what seemed like a no-brainer to me, Deadliest Warrior: The Game. FUCK yes!

Potential re-post here, but these damn school dreams are the worst.

If you enjoyed the ESPY skit that William posted in the last post, perhaps you might enjoy seeing Norm MacDonald’s monologue from some years back? Vintage Norm!

At one point in my life I had the notion of starting an MMA blog. Crazy, I know. I thought I might have compelling things to write about this growing sport, but I was also afraid I might just throw up a shitload of Bob Sapp links. If you’re not familiar with Bob Sapp, he’s a former football player turned pro wrestler turned kickboxer turned mixed martial artist turned actor…but most people in Japan just know him as the biggest black dude who ever lived. Here is his international songsation, It’s Sapp Time!. And here is selling pizza and gummy candy. Trust me, I am fully aware that posting crazy Japanese clips and commercials is one of the most played out things any English speaking blogger can do but…ah, fuck it here’s a Schick commercial with Wanderlei Silva and Mark Coleman. No homo.

All I ask of you is one thing… I ask this particularly of the young people who watch. Please don’t be cynical. I hate cynicism. For the record, it’s my least favorite quality and it doesn’t lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen. I’m telling you, amazing things will happen.