You're Making Me Hate You Read online

  Um, what the fuck, dude?

  If you’ve ever seen someone try to take leather pants off by themselves, you will know how silly it looks. For those of you not privy to this sight, it is in fact futility in motion: it takes two to three pairs of hands, some leverage, and a little traction. Even that requires a little prayer and help from a friend who understands you’re not laughing at them, and that’s for someone who’s sober. But this was so far beyond asinine that I thought I was being Punk’d. This poor boob of a man was tugging his skin-tight leathers down in the middle of domestic paradise at an hour when most paperboys are tying their bundles together. I thought to myself, “This prick thinks he’s at home. He thinks he’s getting ready for bed.” Even this was proven to be false, however, when Charles, in a display of mammoth stupidity I had never seen up to that point, stopped pulling his leather pants off at the knees, squatted uncomfortably … and began to take a shit. I should qualify that with he was trying to take a shit, because it wasn’t going well. He fell three times, all of which deposited him into his own pools of sick. When he finally produced turds, the straining and the breaking of winds were almost too much to take. Then the eventual catastrophe happened. After falling in his own puke, Charles finally added masterful insult to monster injury by falling backward onto his own fresh piles of poop. Then, as if it were written in an Edgar Wright screenplay … he passed out.

  I stood for a second staring at this imbecile, feeling like a burned-out sentinel watching the meteor streak toward the planet, bracing himself for the lethal impact. The Devil’s Whisper—the fart that happens just before you run for the bathroom to expel your waste—still hung in the air like the Grim Reaper blowing you a kiss as he passes by. I was too stunned to speak and too incensed to stutter. But I’m glad I was there, for as I regarded this kiddy pool of a grown child lying in a horrific amalgam of Technicolor Yawn, top soil, and literal shit, certain things started to occur to me: contemplation of my own misdeeds, realization that if I didn’t rein in my own uncontrollable urges, I might end up looking as pathetic as this pain in my ass. All of this shot through my big-ass brain in what felt like an eternity but in actuality was possibly just a millisecond. In that moment of clarity a tone was set. I also remembered how early it was in the morning. So I did what anyone with half an IQ would have done in my shabby shoes.

  I fucking left him there.

  You can boo me all you want. You can talk as many shades of judgmental shit as you like. There was no—and The Rock means NO—no fucking way I was letting that fraction of a man, covered in three-fifths of his own fluids (I think he pissed himself when I wasn’t looking) get back in the cab with me for any reason. I wasn’t going to put that nice taxi driver through it, I wasn’t going to put his cab through it, and I certainly wasn’t going to subject myself to the kind of olfactory assault that would present itself once all of those interesting liquids finished seeping deep into the fabric of his fabulous leather pants. Janice? Hell, I only wish I could have left her there with Captain Dipshit; it was her idea to bring him along in the first fucking place. I got in the cab and told the driver to hit the gas. Janice protested, but I quieted her with the knowledge that this was my fare—if she wanted to stay in this car and complain, she could pay for it herself. We dropped her off down the street from her apartment without a good-bye, and I haven’t seen her since. On a good day I wish her luck. On a bad day I have hopes that she woke up one morning with her face buried deep in Charles’s putrid leather chaos.

  It was in that moment long ago, watching a grown man coat himself in excrement and grass stains like a toddler who can’t hold its own head up, that I realized something in myself that maybe I had never been asshole enough to see before: when it comes to incompetence and mental oblivion, when it comes to deep-seated stupor and offensive ignorance, my tolerance level is decidedly low. Being around stupid, callous people makes me feel like I have the flu: I get aches, I get anxious, I sweat, and I look for any available exit to fight my way to freedom. This is all while trying to restrain myself from lashing out at the offender. My good friend Geoffrey Elizabeth Head once imparted to me a saying that bears repeating: “Son, if you’re going to be dumb, be tough because you ain’t going to make it on your brains or your looks.” Judging by my own observations as of late, this world must be full of tough motherfuckers.

  And so we come to the root of this book’s evil, bitches.

  You see … I have been watching you all for a very long time. Yes, as creepy as that sounds, it is unfortunately true. Just as most of you gripping these pages have been following my actions for nearly twenty years, I have been studying your habits and your whims, your qualities and your qualms since before many of you were born. I have observed your shameless daring and your unchecked anger. I have considered your histrionics and your ridiculous gatherings. I have walked among you at event after event, marveling at your behaviors and individualities. Having done so and after all these years, I can unequivocally say that most of you are all so far off the fucking reservation that I fear for the future of our species.

  Not the ones who bought this book—you have shown exceptional savvy! You are part of the 2 percent that gives me hope! But the other 98 percent of the population, you can simultaneously thank and blame alcohol and YouTube for that statement. You can also throw some expletives in the directions of reality TV, atrocious drivers, Justin Bieber, Kanye, fast food, infomercials, regular commercials … basically just people. I’ve said it before and, Buddha forgive me, I am going to proclaim it again: if it weren’t for my family and my friends, I WOULD FuckING HATE YOU ALL, EVERY MOMENT OF EVERY DAY OF MY LIFE.

  There are just too many reasons for writing this book, nearly all of which will be headlining the many chapters inside. But I feel it imperative to say this right out of the gate: I am just as guilty of being a meandering cocker as you are. My track record as an occasional mouth-breathing dickhead may have just as many high (low) points as the dozens of “stars” that appear on the assorted TV shows running clip after disturbing clip showing men and women alike making some of the most idiotic moves imaginable. Whether it’s selfie footage of women falling through coffee tables while they film themselves twerking or whether it’s men shooting each other in the chest with live handguns to show their “toughness” while wearing bulletproof vests, there is an alarming trend of human beings tossing caution to the wind for a trickling glimpse of fame through shame, and what’s most sad is they have none. They have no shame. They don’t care that they are spreading moronic activity like a virus across the landscape. They don’t give a flying fuck that this shit looks like a live feed from a mental hospital; they just want enough time to throw a bandage on the head wound so they can immediately check to see how many hits the video received in the last twenty seconds. If they took another twenty seconds to watch the video, they might realize they have a concussion.

  But I am no Lord of the Hill; these hands pitching fastballs at glass houses are just as dirty as yours are. However, there are a lot of exemptions in my favor. One, much of my calamitous behavior occurred prior to the Digital Age, so no footage or real proof exists (thank fuck) and can only be found in hearsay and interviews. Two, I understand the difference between “getting it out of your system” when you are young and not giving a shit outright about making buffoonery seem like a career and not an aberration as you get old enough to actually know better. Three—and this is most important—it is my book, so I can do no wrong. Shit happens; it just so happens to be yours and not mine. So guess what? Even if you are not devoid of gray matter, even if you are not technically by definition bereft of intuitive mental faculties, you are all guilty by association. This is a RICO case, and I am the district attorney in charge of bringing justice to the world. I may not be infallible, but I can wear a suit and use big words, and it won’t even look like someone put peanut butter on the roof of my mouth.

  This means I believe most of you can’t be trusted to pull the underwear out of
your own ass let alone remember to change into clean ones after you have defecated in them. And I hate to say it but you don’t make it very difficult to prove my point.

  I have a bunch of shit I want to say, and the sad part is there’s so much that I don’t even know where to start. Airports, megamalls, shitty drivers, family reunions, sex, food, dickless music, clothes, and children—yes: children—all of these topics are targets for my venomous brand of vitriol in this book, and it is happening all over the world. As much as most of my international friends and foes would love to believe that this is a singularly American pandemic, I am begging you to give me the chance to differ. I have had the privilege to travel all over this blue, green, and white marble in space. I don’t just run around yelling and screaming; I have been known to settle in the background and observe, taking notes when I’m not taking naps on painful, uncomfortable chairs en transit. As much as I realize my country owns its unfair share of stock in this zeitgeist of gibberish, I have also discovered that this is a global catastrophe. I haven’t been everywhere, but I’ve been to enough “wheres” to know that Earth has pockets of stupid popping up north, south, east, and west. From the equator to the prime meridian—dumb does not so easily wash off.

  The wonderfully liberating thing about this mounting sense of rage is that I DON’T GIVE A Fuck ANYMORE. I know I’ve said that in the past, but for better or worse, there has always been a side to me that usually holds a little bit back out of respect and to spare anyone the sting of hurt feelings. Well, as you are about to find out, my gloves are off. Not only are the gloves off, but I’ve also set fire to them like a Viking Boxer, throwing the burning mitts in a leaky bucket and kicking them across the sea with a hardy sigh and a stout middle finger flown in disrespect. Subsequently, don’t get mad at me; you fuckers brought this on yourselves. It’s not my fault that your entire population has fallen all over each other to popularize insignificant, irrelevant, talentless garbage. But it’ll truly be my sadistic pleasure to rip it all to shreds before your very eyes.

  But like I said before, not you guys, readers! We’re all cool here. I’m sure none of you would take the Cinnamon Challenge or drink yourselves stupid and pass out with your panties presented for all to see outside the McDonald’s in SoHo. I’m unwavering in my assertion that none of you would use a ridiculous, pathetic term like YOLO. “You Only Live Once” … yeah thanks for that, Confucius. I didn’t fucking realize that “You Only Live Once.” This is such meaningless, pseudo-analytical bullshit that it makes me madder than anything else at the moment. It’d be one thing if people were using YOLO when it pertained to something meaningful, like climbing a mountain or painting a portrait of that same mountain while sipping exotic teas on a veranda near the sea. I could understand it if you were attempting to put a little culture in your caboose. If YOLO were used in this context, I wouldn’t want to shoot spitwads soaked in cunt juice into the face of God. But it’s not. It’s just fucking not. It’s used to excuse the most ignorant, disgusting behavior I have come across in my life, and I grew up in a fucking trailer park in the middle of Nowhere, Iowa. I heard someone use “YOLO” while he tried to convince some idiotic teenage girl to jump sideways onto a moving treadmill while it was going like 60 mph. Guess what: long story short, she ate shit and now her face looks like shit. “You Only Live Once” … yeah you only die once too, ass hat. A bunch of kids climb into bed to fuck each other crazy—fine, whatever. One says, “You Only Live Once!” Sure, true … however, you can get pregnant as many times as your crusty urethras and uteruses can manage. You only live once! You can get herpes and AIDS once as well. Sorry: that shit stays forever. So yes, indeed, you only live once. Let me ask you this: Is it a life worth fucking living?

  Oh, but not you exceptional observers of taste and vision! I’m not lumping you into that bacterial pot of oatmeal. No, I have other plans for you. You are going to become my army. You are going to form my Legion of Doom to fight the Regions of Dumb. There’s only one requirement for joining this battalion: I need you all to discourage morons from buying this book because this isn’t just about stupidity; this is about incompetence. Any person who believes that the shit in this book is okay after I’m done tearing it apart is beyond reproach. This is the difference between a banal mind and an incompetent one. A dumb person can be taught; an incompetent person cannot be taught because he or she has no idea that they are incompetent, thereby making them content to breeze through life knocking people and ideas over in their wakes. So you, my spry little spies, are going to be the tip of my sword, the gold in my dust. You are all officially Weapons of Mass Disparagement. It is imperative that you make it absolutely clear to every group of assholes out there that this book is not for them. Did you take time to read the Foreboding (Fake) Disclaimer? That shit is real—I had a lawyer look at it. Okay, so his last name was “Lawyer,” but he agreed it felt pretty binding when I shoved my computer in his face as he delivered my pizza. So if it looks good to him, it works for me. I indeed have a wiffle ball bat, and I’m so not afraid to use it. If you have a bunch of dumb friends and you care for their dumb faces, do not let them read this book.

  Make no mistake: this is not the Corey Taylor you see on the street. This is not the Corey Taylor you run into at meet-and-greets or in line at the coffee shop. This is not the kind and cuddly guy that kisses babies and takes pictures with your mom while leaving a voicemail for that distant cousin in college. This is not the lovable scamp who can poke just as much fun at himself as he does the various rubes around him. In fact, this isn’t Corey Taylor: this is Corey Motherfucking Taylor. This is The Great Big Mouth. This is that bastard you wonder about when you listen to Slipknot. I put the F-U in fuck at any given moment, and I will fucking sound off with the power of a fistful of missiles. I am going to piss you off while you piss your pants. I am going to remind you that just as I love to have a good time like anyone else, I am also a diminutive and angry man with a giant neck made of muscle, rage, and heavy metal music. I am The Mouth, and guess what, motherfuckers? The Mouth has had it. You don’t listen. You don’t learn. You, unfortunately, don’t like to do anything other than chase the shiny baboon ass of fame, fortune, and frivolous attention grabbers. You treat each other so shabbily that I can’t do anything but sit on my couch and seethe like a criminal. I can’t go out in public because you all act like fuck licks. I can’t go on the Internet because now that everyone has a voice, no one is saying anything that is worth hearing or reading. I can’t watch TV because it is so overloaded with reminders that the Earth is fucked that I hide under my bed in case a dickhead with a machete comes charging into my house. Great—you’re all dumb and nuts. I guess it’s time to turn The Vault into a Panic Room. At least I won’t be bored: that’s where all my DVDs and comic books are kept. It would only make sense to install an entertainment center, complete with monitors so I can watch the outside of my house. You never know when someone’s going to snap and turn into Jason Voorhees.

  I’m going to wrap this chapter up so we can get to the beating hearts of the matters that just don’t matter, and I am going to do so by describing to you the last bit of weirdness I was a part of not too long ago.

  We had a party at Chez Taylor for my son Griffin’s birthday. There was a part of me that was weeping because my little man was growing up. There was also a part of me that was proud to see how he was growing up. So I let him decide on the theme for the party and I went to work on getting it all together. I decided to buy him a cake instead of baking one as I have done for the last seven years. This afforded me a glimpse into my own boobery because the cake I got was way too big: one full cookie sheet and two stories high, covered in mouth-watering cream cheese frosting. Side note: we were still eating off this monster a week later. I finally had to throw it away, and it was still big enough for another birthday party.

  I’m an idiot …

  This isn’t about the cake, though. This is about one of Griffin’s friends. We made some invites for Griff t
o take to school so his friends could come over. Within an hour the house was crawling with kids Griffin’s age, hopped up on sugar and running around like suicide bombers on a day off. Let me tell you something really quick: I love my children. I do. However, I am really not fond of other people’s children, including some of my closest friends’ kids. Really, I just hate them. I’m a decent enough guy not to say it to their faces, but it’s true. To me, most kids are fucking mobile diseases with opposable thumbs and vocal cords. But I can usually keep it to myself. There is, however, one of Griff’s friends who strains my patience against the Kevlar skin I use to keep it in check. Now, I’m a not complete cunt—I won’t tell his real name. Not that I’m worried about this kid reading any of my books; Griff and his friends roll their eyes for the most part at my so-called fame. But I won’t tell you his name because, on the off chance that it gets back to him, he’s weird enough to try to come at me with a butter knife or some garden shears—whatever might be in reach. So for the sake of my safety, we’ll call him Milt.

  At the birthday party he calmly informed me that I was taking him home … without asking me beforehand. I let a little anger slip when I replied that next time he needed to ask me first because, and I quote, “I don’t really want to!” However, I spoke with his mother and assured her that I would in fact bring Milt home after the party had come to a close. Milt was very happy—he didn’t want to leave his friends behind too soon. Around 8:30 p.m. the other parents had swung by and dragged their kids off to their respective homes. I escorted Milt to the family Range Rover, and we began the short drive to his house.

  Now, I know this kid was young, but I can usually hold a conversation with anyone of any age. This would not be the case on this ride into central Des Moines. Oh I tried. I tossed out one-liners in various attempts to have a nice talk with Milt. But all I got was one-word replies.