It's Official: Mike Myers is Not Funny
What the hell is it with this "freak-dancing" stuff? You know, all my life I wanted to be old. It wasn't that I thought old people were cool or whatever; all the ones I knew had peculiar habits and smelled funny, and kept hugging me and telling what a darling, cute thing I was. But I wanted to be old as in adult, which for some reason I identified with freedom from all the constraints of childhood - mainly the expectation that I present the world with an attitude of constant upbeatness. Have fun! I was constantly urged. You want pleasure! Constant and unending! Okay, I said, I'll go do what I think is fun: I'll go to my room and read. But that's not fun! the appalled multitudes exhorted. Fun! was: anything Not Intellectual. Kickball, Barbie, holding the neighbor boy face-down in a puddle of water, drooling in a corner of the yard - anything but reading.
When I'm a grown-up, I thought, I'll be free of all that.
So here I am, the only grown up in America. No, that's not true - there are some of us. Enough of us, in fact, that I often forget that to a great multitude Out There, professional victimhood is a way of life, as easy as breathing, and about as involuntary.
But first I was going to get into "freakdancing," which quite frankly sounds like something I swear people did back in the bad old Seventies. It's simply a dance "craze" that today's pre-adolescents are apparently indulging in, to the reflexive horror of the parents who spawned them (those that were able to tear their gaze away from Survivor long enough to notice). It seems that "freakdancing" is this decade's (I may refer to it as the "Oughts") version of the Lambada - Yet Another Simulated-Sex Dance.
Mr. Bob O'Reilly is a bit exercised over this. I am just perplexed, but that's nothing new. I neither liked nor understood pre-post-whatever-they-are "young people," when I was in the same age bracket; I don't like or understand them now. Then as now a major portion of their energy seems to be spent in irritating their parental units. That always seemed to me to be a waste of time. (Well - I had a phlegmatic temperament: I made Greta Garbo seem vivacious. And I had frustratingly unshockable parents.) I just can't understand why a twelve-year-old girl would even want to let some icky boy grind her to Destiny's Child songs. That's not what I wanted when I was twelve. (I wanted my own pet fire-breathing dragon, instead. It would have been a lot safer to ride to school on than the bus.) The clammy, whispery business of teen and preteen romance looks as dreary now as it did then. I'd rather read a book - heck, I'd rather watch tv.
Speaking of tv, there are few shows I watch these days. I pay more than $50.00 per month for digital cable to watch about three shows, with dollops of the Fox News channel. The problem is, the shows I watch are all on cable channels (A&E, FX). Mostly it's five hundred channels, nothing on (except for endless repeats of LA Law).
So I'm yacking on this message board, somewhere out on the web (no links from me!), about a teevee show I and the other board members like to watch, and in discussing a lawsuit one of the show's stars had filed against the studio that owned the show, I mentioned the fact that the Jewish/Scottish parentage of said star plus said star's being from one of the self-proclaimed Tough Towns of the World (New York City) were no doubt a factor in said star's impetus to sue the studio (for monetary shenanigans that apparently resulted in Said Star not getting a fair share in the show's profits), and probably also explained the Star's perceived (by the members of this message board anyway) preoccupation with money. I based this on: my own background (the Scottish part anyway, by way of New England) and that of friends and coworkers, and not the least on an interview given by none other than the Star, in a well-known British newsthingie (not some hack publication). I instantly became accused of propagating "ethnic stereotypes," and was invited to post to "[..]Klan" sites. Then I was told by the board's moderater that my and the Star's views were "in poor taste." Well, that was an interesting venture into PC-land. I guess now I know what Generation Y thinks of, for instance, the routines of Mike Myers - his Barbra Streisand "like buttah" fans, his "angry" Scots patriarchs, all his movies - because they are comedies, see, and comedies make fun of things, situations, but most of all, people. We can't have that, someone might get their feelings hurt, like that congresswoman - excuse me, congressperson - in Tennessee or someplace whose feelings are so hurt by the Pledge of Allegiance (because she is a Person of Color, see, and the Pledge and the flag and the whole thing just make her think of slavery) that she feels she has to ostentatiously Not Take The Pledge before congressional meetings....
[Pause: I think "Fetus Farm" is a great name for an industrial-techno band. It's very distracting to type while Mort Kondracke is being interviewed on the Fox News channel. Don't ask.]
Where was I? Oh, yes - it's clear that the Hurt, Put-Upon Ones have taken over society. No one dares say anything, for fear of being followed about by their prissy, pursed-in-disapproval mugs and bleatings of "sexist, racist, antigay!" I am thinking that it's about time we bring the O.B. (Original Bitch) out of hiding. Whatever happened to the men and women who could squash egos at a hundred paces without even breaking a sweat? No wonder kids are shooting up their schools - no one is allowed to be good and mean; they have to settle for bullying and homicide. No one's allowed to make fun of the fat kid who breaths through her mouth and smells like soup - she'll run to her parents and they'll sue the school. If your pencils are too sharp you're arrested for "bringing weapons to school."
Let's be Mean, I say. After all, when Sensitive Sue and Fragile Frank are curled up under their desks in fetal positions sobbing because someone made fun of their tattoos, at least they aren't getting into any mischief.
[PS: Mike Myers is not the Star in the above saga. Also: I'll be redesigning the site a bit when I get around to it. I finally obtained the Associate Degree of Doom, am attempting to get into the University of Doom, to get the Bachelors Degree of Doom. It would be cool if there was such a thing as a Bachelors Degree of Doom, don't ya think?]