You're Making Me Hate You Page 4

  As I said, though, there are three kinds of mall now, and my town has an example of them all. The Dirt Mall is on the south side. But there are two malls in town that fall under the second category: the No-Other-Alternative-Here Mall. This is the mall you go to when you can’t find what you’re looking for anywhere else. You don’t really want to, but fuck, what are you supposed to do? You have to have that sweater vest! It’s not even a choice at that point—it’s a fucking challenge. And if going to the No-Other-Alternative-Here Mall—or NOAH Mall—means you get that sweater vest, then by god and clean jeans, you are going to the NOAH Mall … and hell’s coming with you.

  There are, in fact, two NOAH Malls in my hometown, and both started out on very different ends of the spectrum. One was in fact another blue-collar mall at one time and had gone through multiple fluctuations fiscally in its years of wear and tear; sometimes it would trend poor, and other times it would flex toward flush. It had steady business, however, and held as much ground as it seemed to give. The other mall had at one time, ironically, been the rich mall. It was located on the west side and the lifeblood that ran through its veins over the years had been the wealthy of our little side of the Midwest. It was upper class, snobby, and reeked of Drakar cologne. Over the decades these two monoliths of money had duked it out even though each one knew who was winning the fight on any given Sunday. As they did, more land was being developed farther west, spreading the gift of suburban high jinks to the exits off the highway folks rarely traveled. Pretty soon the blank spaces of west Des Moines were colored in with families and fun.

  That is when the real Rich Mall moved in.

  Two stories high and damn near the biggest thing the city had ever experienced, Jordan Creek had quickly put to rest the argument of where the wealthy people in town were going for their socks and signets. The other two malls really never stood a chance. At Jordan Creek, on any day of the week, you can buy—and this is true—swords, guns, pretzels, $500 tennis shoes, Yankee Candles, DVDs, lingerie, whatever the hell Bath & Body Works sells, books, coffee, and Love Sacks, which are plush bean bag chairs the size of a Honda Accord. There are more restaurants at that mall than on the south side alone and a theater that might as well be on Hollywood Boulevard. Oh, and they have a Cheesecake Factory.

  Game. Set. Match.

  For the poor fuckers at the NOAH Malls, all they could do was pour a little more money into décor and ambience just to keep enough of their heads above water so they weren’t choking on salt and saliva. Jordan Creek was carpeted, with fountains and elevators, for Christ’s sake. If Zeus himself was going to shop at the Gap, he was going to go to Jordan Creek. With Jordan Creek’s construction, the mall battles of Des Moines, Iowa, were swiftly drawn to a bloody close, shortening the war by four years. But by doing so, Jordan Creek had in fact evoked the universal sin of all sins. It had given rise to the worst of the worst: the real mall shoppers. People were now bopping along, paying no attention, cracking off into their cell phones and cackling at unheard shitty jokes like they were front row for the second coming of Pryor. Keys dangling from manicured fists, these sophomoric twits blazed a terrible trail through our midst with enough selfish ambiguity to place us all on the chopping block, with no turning back. These are grim times in the DSM, and there seems to be no resistance to its allure. Teenagers, both girls and boys, rummage through the psyches of the platitudes, skulking or pointing, acting like assholes on parole. We’ll talk way more about children later, but suffice it to say that the landscape is riddled with shit stains with too much time on their hands. And many of them aren’t buying a fucking thing.

  Never mind the mall walkers … here’s the Sex Pistols.

  I have put up with shit like flash mobs and Occupy Restrooms for so long you’re all lucky I haven’t climbed a fucking clock tower in recent years. In fact, why are so many of you out and about during the day? I know for a fact that most of you don’t have the kind of freewheeling schedule that I enjoy. Where are your jobs? What do you do for a living? And if you don’t have a fucking job, why the hell are you buying so much shit you really don’t need? Are your parents away on vacation? Did you bolt on your sitters? Did you sneak out the window of your bedroom in broad daylight like a “cast” member on Cops so you could peruse the streets and cul-de-sacs of the world for no real reason? I suppose I could be considered a callous cock face for this, but my question is: What do you actually do?

  According to the commercials of the world, set annoyingly to that shitty Indy hippie garbage (we’ll talk more about that “music” later), what you people do with your time is simple: you traipse through sunlit afternoons, creating unique activities for yourselves because your generation is so different, you have to have different things to engage your independent and, therefore, superior attention. You have impromptu kickball games or paint things that you consider ugly and displeasing to your eyes. You gather in public places to make art consisting of multicolored cardboard cutouts that you then hold up to the sky in certain shapes while someone with a modified iPhone pretends to be Helmut fucking Newton on a roof somewhere, shooting from above in a subliminal nod to how you consider yourself looking down on the crowd because you “know it’s more dramatic.” You all dress differently and, by doing so, dress exactly the same, with your clever T-shirts of icons you have no clue about, pants that are so tight, they should technically be cutting off the blood flow to your ankles, and black horn-rimmed glasses, whether you need them or not, all tied nicely together with a seemingly inexpensive-yet-very-expensive corduroy jacket. You love fun and life and happiness and bullshit because you are all unequivocally the most pretentious bunch of cocksuckers I have ever seen. At least the Yuppies owned their shit. You treat everything you do as vital because if you don’t, you’d be faced with the reality that you have no fucking clue what you’re doing or what you’re supposed to do next.

  I know what you’re thinking. You’re saying to yourself, “What do you mean, ‘you people’?” To which I will retort, “What do you mean, ‘you people’?” I warned you before: this wasn’t going to go well for you, so suck your straws until the cup is dry and shut up. Everywhere I look there are scores of cunts just moseying through their tenure with not a care in the world. Meanwhile, people are homeless. Children are dying. Animals are mistreated. Families are torn asunder. Countries collide above our heads, and our government officials can’t even stand being in the same room with each other. Yeah, these are all great reasons to muck about and suck at life. Your “can-do” attitudes only really get as far as what you feel like doing for yourselves.

  Some of you hippie types might actually be bothered to join the fight here and there where the chains show a bit of abuse, but when you do it’s always done so fucking twat-like. I saw a commercial on a relatively new network in the states where a correspondent was attending an “alternative music festival.” The shit they had at this festival was such twaddle that I couldn’t stand myself. A woman was selling poetry at a typewriter. A man was making albums at a vinyl press. An “artist” was creating “art” on an LED screen and having people stand in front of it while he took their pictures—trouble is, it was the same pair of crappy angel wings every time. But to the washed masses, this was the epicenter of art in this country. I’ve seen more thought-provoking roadkill. These same people were bragging about recycling. Yay fucking Bertha: you’re supposed to fucking recycle. What do you want, a cookie soaked in Nobel Prizes? Go fuck yourself, you self-important dildos. Having said that, it occurs to me that that may in fact be the only way they can experience satisfaction: by fucking themselves. So the joke’s on me.

  And I’m not fucking laughing.

  You could set your watch to how incredibly benign people and their ilk behave in this day and at their age. The problem is that I know this type of youthful renaissance fascinates the rest of my kind. My fellow water buffalo stop in their muddy tracks, taken in by the strange goings-on of this aberrant movement. At this moment in history distrac
tion is the name of the game. Don’t pay any mind to the seriousness of our places in the world. Don’t worry whether Egypt is burning, Libya is crumbling, and South America is still anathema for anyone not in a drug cartel. Don’t you worry your pretty little fuck faces about a goddamn thing. Just make sure those mittens you knit for yourself match the embroidered jumper you got for Christmas. Be lucky I’m not God: I would have canceled this shit-ass experiment called Man long before Jimmy Fallon got his own talk show.

  I need to get outside my sweatbox and clear my head for a bit. So I’ll tell you a story that, though it gets heavy at the end, is about the joy of being yourself and the hell that is other people, to paraphrase Sartre. You see, being a geek at heart, there are certain places I have longed to make pilgrimages to since before I could sing in tongues. I have always wanted to go on a Civil War tour and visit the essential hot spots tied to that ordeal. I want to take my wife to Egypt so we can stand in front of the pyramids and gaze in wide-eyed wonder (also because I want to get to the bottom of what Ancient Aliens is going on about). At some point in my career I want to play the Hollywood Bowl—as much for the prestige as for the fact that my heroes, from Jim Morrison to Monty Python, have all played that beautiful place near the 101. I have places I want to go and experiences I want to cherish. So you can imagine my furious excitement when I was asked to be a part of a special signing at the San Diego Comic-Con, the Mecca for ink rats like me.

  I was so elated that I packed all my good comic book T-shirts, but I was also pragmatic enough to make sure there was ample room in my suitcase for all the things I was going to buy while I wandered the cavernous bowels of the happiest place on Earth for comic nerds. I had a plan, and I wasn’t going to let anyone sway me from my objective: to get my grubby little hands on all the stuff I’d ever wanted to own as a child. I believe this is the stuff of legend for collectors, although it could also be considered the starting gun for a hoarder-to-be. But I didn’t care. I was going in wallets blazing and holidays be damned. The cool thing was I could bring my family, including Griff, my nieces Haven and Jaylynn, and my nephews Drew and Lil Phil. My wife, sister, and mother-in-law followed suit, if only to watch the Grown Man-Boy go ape shit at the sight of so many action figures and so little time. Shit was real; punch that shit.

  I did my signing at the Dark Horse booth in the middle of the convention center and had a great time hanging out with fans and artists alike. I was giddy—the place was wall-to-wall Kick Asteroid, and I was in love with every minute of it. Everywhere I looked there was a wall covered in stuff I had to have to survive: a Doctor Who bathrobe that looked like the Tardis (I bought it), Dexter fan art (I bought it), Lego sets I had never seen before (of course I bought a few), and a whole slew of Minecraft toys for the kids. Oh by the way, I bought them. I was daunted at first when I couldn’t find many of the back-issue comics I was looking for, but that paled in the face of the fact that I was with my family in a giant room surrounded with anything else my heart could long for. However, the venom was about to present itself inside the pretty flower.

  After making the rounds and checking it all out, we decided to find a restaurant somewhere and grab some foodstuffs. A couple of hours later we were making our way back to the hotel near the Con. It was during this journey back to our rented digs that we ran face-to-ass into a blockade that any man, woman, or child would shudder to find themselves immersed in. The sun had gone down. The nightlife had come to those sad streets. And much to my chagrin and the extreme discomfort of my family, the sidewalks and roads were bloated with the preposterous pageantry I like to call “douche soup.”

  Everywhere we looked, dick holes stuffed into Affliction clothing were spilling out into the street, drunk and dumb. Everywhere I turned, party chicks were flashing badger with balloons shaped like cocks for misguided headgear. As we drove we became boxed in by two very different types of transport. One was a limo covered in very suggestive writing and containing what appeared to be a lascivious bachelorette party hanging out of every orifice the vehicle had and screaming bloody murder, spilling drinks and body parts in their wake. The other was a very, very expensive Aston Martin DB9 cruising the concrete like a king on sabbatical. The tool shed behind the wheel looked greasy, slimy, and a little too tanned. Plus, with that badass car at his disposal, he was driving WAY TOO FuckING SLOW. I understood immediately: What was the point of having a car like that if no one could see you driving it? So Captain Butt Munch was basically in neutral, winding through the San Diego byways doing a maximum speed of half a mile per hour. It was infuriating. Between the professional alcoholics exploding from the local bars and the dinguses polluting traffic, I felt like I was stuck in gridlock at a Mardi Gras parade. This place I had waited so long to visit had become everything I had learned to hate: pretentious, overindulgent, and disgusting. Needless to say, it knocked the sparkle off of my Apple Jacks.

  Then it went from bad to worse.

  We found out the hard way that, the way the streets are set up in that part of San Diego, there was only one road that went across the tracks, around the convention center, and to our hotel. Unfortunately for us, we got lost twice trying to find that one sliver of cement bound for freedom. This meant we had to drive through the melee another two times before we could get back and go to sleep. It seemed like every time we made our way through the chaos, we saw something even more offensive than before. I’ve witnessed some serious shit in my life—I’ve been to Holland, for fuck’s sake—and even I was flabbergasted, to use that word for forty points. If I hated people before, I was on the verge of homicide after that night. I don’t think I’ll ever go back, and if I do, I certainly won’t take my children. When life gives you douche soup, send it back to the chef, because it’s clearly not what you ordered to begin with.

  It could be karma.

  Look, I’m not an idiot. I know I have “sinned” as much as anyone else dragging knuckles around here. We’ll get to my “transgressions” eventually, and I promise I won’t hold anything back. But, man, I got to be honest: you’re making me hate you. That shit sucks, because I don’t want to hate you. I love you fucking shit brains. Every day I’m reminded of all the great things I love so much about the human race: good people fighting the ignorance and hate all over America; Muslim women standing stronger and taller in the face of intolerance by most of the males of Islam; Russians coming closer and closer to battling the antiquated mindsets that deal with homosexuality in their country; sciences and religions moving forward together to find the divine middle so they can better understand each other. I could write albums’ worth of lyrics full of the things that endear me to the beasts I call my fellow humans. And yet here I am, ripping shit to shreds because the louder noises are all incoherent blasts of incompetent screaming. When I’m talking to someone I can really tell has absolutely no clue about what they are babbling about, all I hear is Mr. Krueger’s sharp metal nails being dragged across a chalkboard seemingly without end. I can’t remember who said it, but there’s a great saying that goes, “Dumb should hurt.” I couldn’t agree more, because other people’s dumb shit hurts me all the fucking time.

  I’m a firm believer in balance. In life and all its trimmings there should exist a fifty-fifty pendulum that is perpetually swinging in everyone’s favor. The Haves should share the burdens of the Have-Nots and vice versa. But at this moment in this place on this dimensional plain, that shift is flying more out of sync than a drunken boy band trying out for Simon Cowell on his swag yacht. I could sit back and ignore it, like most of the fair intelligentsia around the world. However, I don’t work that way. When something’s fucked, I blurt it out, whether anyone’s listening or not. When the going gets stupid, I can’t just get out of the way. I will crash down with a spiteful hammer, like Thor with a death wish, reaping the whirlwind and using big words so no one around me knows what the hell I’m talking about. Simply put, I just don’t give a shit anymore. No one has any common sense. No one has any sense of morality. N
o one has any clue what they should be doing. If this were a factory floor, the place would be empty and littered with body parts because everyone would be at home nursing an injury and drawing workman’s comp. I’m trying to not let it get me down, but more and more every day I can’t get the music loud enough to drown you all out. I’ll go deaf before I go numb, though. So fucking be it.

  In closing this chapter let me just gently point you in the right direction: pay attention when you’re out and about in this world we all share. Be aware of what’s going on and savvy about your actions. Start with something simple like … oh I don’t know … hurry the fuck up when you’re crossing the street. I mean that. You all just sort of saunter from corner to corner like you don’t know where you are. It’s not funny anymore. All you have to do is jog five feet, and you’re halfway there already. This is more of a coast-to-coast problem, as in California where people are too busy posing and in New York where people just ignore you. But it’s spreading all over the world at an alarming rate. You wander out into oncoming traffic with your stupid faces buried in your cell phones, texting or talking or otherwise, acting like what you’re doing is far more important than the rest of the millions of lives being held up by your inactivity. Stop texting—the person you’re communicating with isn’t going to laugh at your joke or the smiley fucking face you send them. Stop talking—your conversation is not that essential to anyone’s life, including your own. Cross the goddamn street so we can all take care of our own bullshit.