Dark

Originally written 12/12/7

It’s funny when and where you get one of those sudden, massive realizations about yourself. When all of a sudden, a gihugic light goes on (or off in my case), you realize something, and it’s like all these disparate issues and episodes you’ve had line up and make coherent sense. I mean this is the shit suckers pay thousands of dollars to shrinks to discover about themselves. And I had one. For free, which is big these days. While, of all things, I was actually Xmas shopping.

I am a dark soul. Really, really dark.

I revel in other people’s misery. Certainly not friends or family, but in general. I get off on negative energy. I am happy when others are miserable. I don’t know that I can tell you why, but I do have many cases as proof.

Exhibit A. I hate Xmas. So what better place to have this epiphany than while Xmas shopping? I was miserable all ready. I was one of those losers who got to the mall like 15 minutes after it opened. I just wanted to get this out of the way. For once, trolling for a job would be the second most depressing thing I do. I looked around at all the lights, shiny decorations, Santa’s village, generic Xmas music in the climate controlled air. Now contrast that generally happy and bright scene with dozens of shoppers, scurrying about. No one looked happy. No one looked thrilled. Kids in strollers were screaming. Moms were stressed. Guys wandering around, bumping off walls, lost in thought about what dafuck to get their girl. Employees looked empty and drained as they restocked their shelves with yet more crap destined for some fool. It should be the happiest time of the year, but I didn’t see that in the faces I saw.

OK, so most rational people hate shopping. And there are other issues with the holidays as well. Still, generally, people look forward to it. They do get happy. And that just pisses me off. How the hell can I be happy when I see all these happy idiots? Fools, they don’t even know they should be miserable. I think they’re kidding themselves. They’re not wise like me. Nah ah. So I guess it turns out that I hate Xmas because all these motards seem to love it. So I can’t be happy during Xmas.

Look at a lot of my fave Xmas songs. A lot of them are on the slow/mellow side

Exhibit B. I hate Philly sports teams. For years and years, I have chided every Philly sports fan I know. I think they’re all ignorant. I think they’re all stupid. I think they’re all posers and homers. I think they don’t realize there actually are other hockey or football teams in other cities that might be better than the hometown team. Ah, yes, this whole darkness thing is starting to make more sense now. Can you think of any other city whose sports fans have to be miserable as Philly’s? They haven’t won a major championship since 83. Most ‘sports fans’ seem to not realize that most of Philly’s b-level teams have piled up the Championships. My beloved Wings have 6 Championships in 22 seasons. The Phantoms have won titles. The Barrage has won a championship. The Kix won a championship. Hell, I think some of the women’s teams here have won their league. But, no, most ignorant stick and ballers are too close minded to notice anything outside the big 4. Let’s look at the Eagles for a minute. Do you realize how many hearts they have broken? 4 NFC Championships, 1 Super Bowl appearance, but no wins. They’ve been tantalizingly close a few times, only to lose in the big one.

I personally have taken great joy watching them blow it again this year. God, how the fans here-of course who are all experts, and could run any team better-want Donovan’s head, they want Reid’s head, etc. Man, o man, did I torture my father in law during that Patriots game. I get a perverse joy listening to the sports talk station here on a Monday after the Iggles lose. O, to hear the callers rage. To hear the hosts fumble. Everyone is so pissed, and just can’t grasp that the Beagles regularly get beaten by better teams.

To wit the Eagles story, the year they lost the Super Bowl, we were at a friend’s house, watching the game. The Birds lose-any surprise?-and there’s a bit of a commotion outside, as a few Eagles fans are loudly commiserating their demise. At this point in my night, I had a few, and won a good deal of money. I was full of myself-any surprise, again?-and went outside and yelled how the Eagles suck ass. A few minutes later, there’s a knock at the door. It’s the neighbor, who is an Eagles’ fan. And has a gun. Absolutely true story. My friends moved out of that neighborhood shortly thereafter.

How can you even be a Phillies fan? They haven’t been in the Series since 93? This year, they finally got back in the playoffs. The city was awash in red. They had tens of thousands of bandwagon jumpers attend a rally at City Hall. After breaking their fans’ hearts the last few years with late season collapses, the guys in red finally made it. Then guess what happened? They won just as many playoff games as I did this year. Yup, zero. The city rose and crashed in less than a week. Suddenly, all those “hard to find” playoff and “team to beat” shirts were 3 for a dollar at Modell’s. But, man, o, man, did I enjoy watching the collapse. Why? Because I am a smarter sports fan? Well, maybe. But mostly, I loved watching these idiots be crushed. I felt alive.

Do you know how thrilled and obnoxious I was when my Avalanche beat the Flyers last week?

Exhibit C. Other reps. When I was working, I openly slagged them in the Missile newsletter. I put the mouth on them in the stores. They were the butt of many, many jokes. Why? Well, because I honestly thought most of them didn’t work as hard as me. And also because they were the competition. I wanted to piss them off. I wanted to make them miserable. I wanted them to be miffed when they walked into a store and saw none of their displays were up; it was all WEA. If they were miserable, then I knew I did my job.

Exhibit D. Opposites attract. Tara is one of the purest hearts and brightest lights I have ever known.

Exhibit E. My TV habits. Lots of violence. Cops is a great show to watch, and it makes me feel better about myself since I see drunken trash at their lowest, and thereby funniest. I can’t get enough of cops beating down some coke addict. I get all fuzzy inside. Intervention, which is better to watch with a few drinks in ya. Prison shows. UFC. 24. I can watch Funniest Home Videos, and laugh at loud at people falling. Falling off a bike, falling out of a tree, falling off of a trampoline, falling of a chair, etc. I am on the floor.

Exhibit F. My love of Halloween. Specifically all the gross and macabre stuff. I can’t get enough of AMC’s annual MonsterFest, and other classic B&W movies on late at night and weekends. Add the fact that I actually like to scare the kids. Remember those 4 poor girls that I made cry? Yea, that’s a good example right there. My love of Halloween and hatred of Xmas led me to create my own bastard holiday to piss all over Xmas revelers with my Halloween obsession.

Exhibit G. (And yes I know I could have organized this for a bit better flow, but this is all stream of consciousness.) My idea for an awesome movie. Yes, it’s Xmas related. It’s called either Santa Killer or Santa Assassin. Both titles have their charm, no? I haven’t actually bothered to write the whole thing out yet, but here’s the basic summary. There’s a guy, who looks nothing like the guy from Nickleback, who is sick of Xmas. He doesn’t like the consumerism. He doesn’t like the music, the hassle, the fakeness of it all. He decides to do everyone a favor, and get rid of Xmas. What is the best way to do it? By getting rid of the fat guy in the suit. So our hero goes to various malls to discreetly kill all the Santas. Here’s the one scene I have fleshed out.

We see little Timmy hop up on Santa’s lap. The Nutcracker Suite is softly in the background. The camera closes in so we just see Timmy’s face, and the bottom part of Santa’s long white beard. The camera never moves from here. Timmy starts telling Santa what he wants. At about the 3rd or 4th toy, we hear a soft pop from above stage right. There are muffled gasps from the unseen crowd. Timmy keeps rattling things off, looking straight into the camera. We hear unseen cell phones being opened and used. Slowly, trails of red stain Santa’s white beard. Still wide eyed and oblivious, Timmy slowly looks up to see why Santa isn’t responding. The blood continues to run down. Timmy looks up, then slowly looks back to the camera and says “…um…Mommy, does this mean I don’t get the Big Wheel?”

So as the movie goes on, our hero has a harder and harder time killing Santas. At the same time, he also becomes a cult hero. It turns out more and more people sympathize with our hero. I don’t have the ending figured out yet, but rest assured, there would be sequels. Yea, that’s dark.

Exhibit H. When I check out books from the library, I read them till the end, then write the ending on the third page to piss off the next guy.

Exhibit I. Last night, we took Bauer to PetSmart to buy some food. While there, we ran into a friend and her dog. So we let the dogs play together for a bit in the store. And while playing, the other dog peed and pooped in the store. And it wasn’t just a regular poop. It was like there was hot Tootsie Roll just continually plopping on the floor. And I just laughed, and laughed and laughed. It was so bad, I got on the phone to call her sister and tell her the dog took a wicked shit in the store. Now, that’s just mean. Funny, but mean. But laughing at friends’ poopy misfortune? That’s kinda dark.

So I feel better now. I am comforted in the knowledge that most great writers have a tremendous dark side, so it can be a great source of inspiration and material. I’m off to egg the orphanage.

Keep it dark.