The Way Of The Toddler

The best thing since the last Good Charlotte album.

by TONY FYLER
edited by WOO and ANDREW HICKS

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[This week, London and several other cities in the UK erupted into riots and looting. Tony Fyler was there. In his reinforced bunker. Waiting for it all to be over.]

As London and a handful of other British cities put out the fires of this week’s rioting – just in time for Parliament to re-open and the whole thing to kick off again – some of the teenage looters are coming forward to explain why they did it.

“It’s our way of expressing our rage at the authorities,” they’ve said. “We’re showing the police and the authorities we do what we like! Nobody listens to us! Well, they’ll listen now!”

Excuse freaking me, but isn’t that called “being a teenager”?

And correct me if I’m wrong, but being a teenager is an excuse for slamming doors, feeling like nobody understands you, writing maudlin poetry, getting more sex than is good for you, not getting enough sex to be good for you, puking up alcohol in your neighbor’s rosebush, going on an occasional demo and then growing the hell up and realizing what an idiot you were. It is not an excuse for beating people up, breaking into shops or burning down your cities!

Pull that shit at home and the Supernanny’d have you on the Naughty Step before you could say, “I didn’t ask to be born!” Now, suddenly, because you’ve gotten together with your buddies and torched some stuff, we’re supposed to take you seriously? Reeeeeally doesn’t work that way. Put down the matches, Inferno Boy, you’re just a bunch of emo kids with hoodie hair!

Of course, there’s been a lot of talk about the economic deprivation of these times feeding into the rage. ’Scuse me? Number one, you’re a teenager, you haven’t done anything yet that warrants a word like “rage.” Number two, yeah, everyone’s poor, what’s your point? “Oh, but all the rich kids have the coolest toys, and it’s not fair that I don’t have them, so I’m gonna smash things and shout and take what I want, cos that’s fair then!” Whatever happened to, “You can’t have it ‘cos it costs too much, now sit down, shut up and play with this cardboard box”? The sense of ‘outraged’ entitlement is never pretty and never persuasive. How about this – quit your bitchin’, get a job, save up your money and buy whatever the hell you want! Simply “not having stuff” is no good reason to take it from somebody else.

There’s also been talk about the sense of disenfranchisement felt by “the youth.” Well again, let’s look at some facts here. You’re teenagers, you can’t be disenfranchised – most of you haven’t even been enfranchised the first time yet! Honestly, the National Health Service no longer provides the quadruple irony bypass needed to be able to listen to a 14 year old talk about how he doesn’t have the rights and respect he deserves without throwing something at the TV screen. You don’t have rights? How about we talk again when your balls drop or your tits emerge. You don’t get enfranchised untill you’re 18. ‘Till then, our house, our rules, put down the freakin’ gasoline. You’re not disenfranchised, you’re a goddamned teenager.

Oh, and while we’re talking about disenfranchisement, in the last election in this country, nobody – but nobody – voted for a coalition government. So I’ve got news for you kids: being technically enfranchised is no guarantee of getting what you want anymore. The government that nobody voted for has gone on to make the most savage cuts in a generation to healthcare, education, wages, unions, the lot.

So y’know what? We’re all pissed off. But there are ways of doing things. Your way is the way of the toddler. In fact, hell, we’ve had to keep the courts open for extra hours to process all the toddlers who’ve been involved in this lunacy, so how about this for a punishment – make ’em all walk around for one day dressed in romper suits and diapers, with pacifiers in their mouths. If you’re going to act like toddlers when you can’t have your impulses satisfied, we get to treat you like toddlers. Fair?

I think most of ’em would rather die.

The way grownup people deal with things, by the way, has been shown by the crews of volunteer street cleaners that have emerged. Ordinary people are responding to the damage of their community by cleaning it up, even though they had nothing to do with causing the damage. There have, of course, been groups of vigilantes ganging together to actively fight the looters. But the most telling report about them is that, in most cases, “the group of men had been gathering in local pubs since about 2 pm.” These are not proper grownups either; these are drunken morons. They have their own version of the Naughty Step – it’s called Their Lives.

Oh, incidentally, much has been made of the “trigger point” of these riots – the death of a young black man at the hands of the armed police officers. (Yes, really, we do have them over here now.) This would be fair enough if, a) it was news that the police were useless at identifying targets. It isn’t – they shot an unarmed guy stone dead on the Tube just a few years ago because he was wearing a duffle coat when it was hot. This new man, Mark Duggan, was at least armed, so the idea that the officer thought there was a threat to life at least gains a little credibility. And, b) more young people weren’t killed every year by other young people with knives and guns than are killed by the police. Bottom line, it’s sad that he died, but claiming his death was the trigger point for these riots is disingenuous given the stated motivations of the looters themselves. These riots were sparked by opportunism, a misplaced sense of entitlement and the chance to nab an iPad 2 in the melee.

You lot, Naughty Step, NOW!

Dear Ex: Anonymous Kiss-Offs

edited by ANDREW HICKS
creatively conceived by ALLISON STEIN

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Dear Ex: You were not as attractive as I led you to believe.

Dear Ex: Thanks for all the child support. You’re not her father.

Dear Ex: I feel like I can tell you now — you don’t have to pray about EVERYthing. Pretty sure you’ve got the green light from the Almighty if you wanna have a popsicle.

Dear Ex: I’d undercook your meat sometimes.

Dear Ex: I still laugh my ass off that the guy you married after me turned out to be huuuuuugely gay. Not mature, but funny as hell.

Dear Ex: Weekday daddy busted a jizzload on your side of the bed.

Dear Ex: I made out with your mom more than I made out with you. And she was better at it. But that’s no secret.

Dear Ex: Remember how I said you were the best sex I ever had? The only orgasms I ever had during our marriage were the ones I gave myself. Thanks for nothing. Love, Me.

Dear Ex: I could tell you were not a habitual marijuana smoker when we got high and you spent the next two hours scratching down your entire body while singing a song called “Itchy Time.”

Dear Ex: Your brother used to try to have sex with me every time you weren’t home.

Dear Ex: I find it completely hilarious that I actually slept with more women than you did, and they were better in bed.

Dear Ex: I still get good laughs telling people how, every time you saw a stray dog or cat walking on the side of the road, you would stop the car, pull over, throw open the passenger side door and yell, “Go home! Go home! Go home, doggy! You have a home! Go there and be safe!”

Dear Ex: Your mother doesn’t love you. She told me once she wished you’d never been born.

Dear Ex: We might have worked out if we hadn’t been so hopelessly incompatible in bed. We made the best of it, but in all fairness, your squeaking noises during sex ruined the mood. Also, it would have helped if your dick stayed hard the whole time.

Dear Ex: Dental hygiene is important. Brush up!

Dear Ex: I used your toothbrush to clean the sink. Every time.

Dear Ex: I fucked a random Italian man the night before our wedding.

Dear Ex: Your hair is not growing back in. Not even a little, so stop spending the equivalent of the national deficit on Rogaine. You’re fucking bald.

Dear Ex: Remember that night you were so drunk, but you swore we had sex? We didn’t. I had sex with your best friend. You watched from a chair in the corner, holding your dick in your hand.

Dear Ex: If I’d known when I left that you’d become an evangelical Christian… nah, screw it, I still would have left.

Dear Ex: I appreciate you staying in contact with me for seven or eight years after I broke up with you, saying you always wanted to be friends. I do find it curious, however, that since you’ve married that doctor, I haven’t heard a single word.

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CONTRIBUTORS: Allison Stein, Lola Tucker, Andrew Hicks, J.Miz, Tony Fyler, Woo

Rapture? Are you Rap-sure?

by ANDREW HICKS
and WE’RE NOT FUNNY

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Dear Jesus,

We knew you weren’t coming back on Saturday, but that didn’t stop us from cleaning our houses just in case. And we don’t mean in the metaphorical, spiritual, “Get your house in order” sense. No, we vacuumed, swept and mopped in the kitchen, did our dishes and everything. We even put out three different varieties of Doritos, since we couldn’t remember which one was your favorite back in the day*.

Okay, we did get our hopes up a little bit when you called Macho Man Randy Savage to heaven a day early, leaving only 143,999 spots open for the rest of us. Then we remembered that the chosen 144,000 mentioned in the Bible are virgins, and you of all omniscient beings should know the Macho Man had his share of big-haired ’80s trailer trash**.

It wasn’t the most disappointing weekend ever. No earthly second coming from you, Jesus, but we did get to meet a delusional hobo who thought he was Vishnu, the supreme god of Vaishnavite Hinduism.

This Rapture hoopla*** reminded us of a few other times you were “supposed” to come back and didn’t. Remember when Pat Robertson spent all of 1982 talking about how you were definitely going to come back in 1982? Then he had to go on the air January 1, 1983. That was a pretty awkward show for Pat. (“Uh, when I said Jesus would come back in 1982, what I meant to say was, ‘The Jews For Jesus will have a comeback in 1982.’ That’s it. That’s what I was trying to say. ’82 was a HUGE year for Christian Jews.”)

The Day After ‘Judgment Day’

"And what a lovely singing voice you must have..."

by MICHELLE DEE
edited by ANDREW HICKS and WOO

I have seen a lot of hoopla about Judgment Day approaching on 5/21, and it got me thinking, What would happen if all the world’s true believers disappeared on this day? Lucky for me, I’d be around to see it!

Everyone knows I’d miss the Rapture, but there’d be some surprise heathens in my midst — President Obama and the entire on-air team at Fox News. I’m pretty sure Obama is a closeted atheist, because what Christian fights for the right of those with no religion? And the Fox News team pretends to be extreme right-wing, but it’s an obviously an act for ratings.  They would be left behind in the Judgment Day disappearances, but their viewership would vanish from existence.

The only “crazy conservatives” in the public eye who truly believe the diarrhea coming out of their mouths are Fred “God Hates Everyone But Us” Phelps and his family. They would be taken in the 5/21 Rapture. Sure, they rub many of us the wrong way, but they are true overachievers for Jesus.

Can You Purchase A Bazooka At Walmart?

by PAUL LAO
edited by ANDREW HICKS and WOO

At work, I was serving a couple who were curious to know my nationality. They were half-Filipino/half-white, and I was trying to describe to them the general location of Cambodia on a map. So I basically broke down Asia into the big pieces: Mainland China, Japan and Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia) in relation to the Philippines. I mentioned India, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and they immediately exploded into prejudice comments. (“Damn towelheads! Red dot hodgies!”)

Two weeks after 9/11, when I was in school at IU, a girl from Indonesia was reported to have been punched in the face by a male on campus. She may have been Muslim. But there are over a billion Muslims worldwide who have no ties to Al Queda, just as neo-Nazis and Klansmen who are Christians don’t represent the whole religion or all white people, even though they would certainly like to.

Quick judgments based on profiling frustrate me. We dehumanize foreigners while America’s reputation as a nation of elitists is overshadowed by impatient, fat, lazy, selfish domestic attitudes. As Americans, we are divided on when our nation should go to war. Should we go to war to stop genocide? Should we go to war with Central and/or South American nations because they ship drugs into our country? One definite — we can always wage war in the name of revenge. See: Pearl Harbor and 9/11.

A Little About Josh Fuller

Mark,

As I write this note, Josh is on the road to recovery, and I unfortunately have not kept in touch with the majority of the Hacienda restaurant community.  But Josh is made from the stuff of legends.  When I met him in the kitchen at Hacienda, we all worked together as grunts doing our part to supply the world with warm garbage burritos, while at the same time keeping the nastiest woman alive at bay. Her first name was Nancy; her last name escapes my memory, but her cackling, emphysema-ridden cough haunts my very soul.

What started as casual Halo playing soon turned into Josh hosting many a drunken festival.  He was the guy who had a party somewhere at his place, and if there already was a party, he was the afterparty, and if there already was an afterparty, then he was up at 6, running and working out.

Josh Fuller was Bill Brasky.

No door can be locked on Josh Fuller.  He will climb a two story house and crack open a window, break down the door with his head, or simply drive his car into it.

If you forget anything in your room in Las Vegas, don’t cancel those plans. Josh will simply run two miles in any direction and be back in five minutes with the desired item.

Who cooks their french fries in gasoline?

by MICHELLE DEE

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WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN AMERICA GOES TO HELL

• Electricity is now a rare commodity – A nationwide outcry of “I’M BORED” is eerily heard in the night from America’s unplugged children.
• The Internet has become even more rare – Tens of millions of Facebook and World of Warcraft addicts now turn to more attainable methadone to dull the effects of withdrawal.
• Oil production ceases – The streets of America are filled with hilarious sightings of Fat-Former-French-Fry-Eating-Mofos on rusted little bikes.
• Looting, violence, and protection of life and property are now the norm – Fear of crazy right-wing gun owners reaches an all time high, resulting in extreme hippie liberals becoming sought after with their arsenal of weapons and ammunition to combat this growing threat.
• The end of digital music creates “The Lost Generation” – These people will be out of the loop with the “new” way of music, as cassettes and CDs make a huge comeback in battery-powered devices.
• Extreme capitalism takes over – Biff Tannen becomes President.

An Open Letter To An Old A-Hole

Fellow Grocery Store Patrons,

If I have the happy and fortunate position to precede you in line, MY groceries go first, then yours. When I put the plastic divider down, that is your ‘green light’ to unload away, not before. I should not have to stack my bread on top of itself because you’re driven by some unknown urge to unload your cart as soon as possible. Thank you for your cooperation.

Best,
Anne Gardner

Dear Old Rude Ass Jackass Man At The Grocery Store,

Clearly my previous post regarding grocery store etiquette did not reach you. Probably this has something to do with you not having a Facebook account, or probably even owning a computer.

As previously mentioned, however, MY groceries go first, then yours. Today I even offered for you to go in front of me since you were obviously in a hurry to get through the check out line. And what did you do? You refused, explaining that the cashier was fast and it wouldn’t be necessary. So I said, “yes, she is, but I’m eight months pregnant and not fast.” To which you replied, “Oh, well would you like me to help you unload?” and proceeded to touch my groceries prior to receiving an answer from me! So I hurriedly responded, “No, that’s ok.” But what I was really thinking was, “No. I dont want help unloading. I want you to go in front of me so I don’t have to feel rushed to unload my groceries as I hold my breath bending over the side of my cart with a huge pregnant belly. I want you to get your shopping done without any further interaction with you. And I want you to get your fucking hands off my bread! And really, truly, more than anything, I want to get out of this store with my groceries without getting further harassed, creating a scene, or getting arrested for elder abuse.”