Evan Dorkin, �Dork� Multiple titles
- �Dork: Who�s Laughing Now?� (Started November 29 � Finished November 29, 2006; 112 pages)
- �Dork: Circling the Drain� (Started November 30 � Finished November 30, 2006; 112 pages)
Well, I suppose the big news comes not from me, but from my sister, as last Saturday she managed to excrete seven and a half pounds of human flesh through her body.
Yep, I�m an uncle. This means that I can now play the role of the eccentric, crotchety old man who provides wisdom in a warped yet simplistic manner. As we�ve all seen, this is the kind of role that wins you Oscars.
Of course, I have cousins and whatnot who have excreted children of their own and I�ve hammed up my role. But I only get to see those kids on the occasional holiday or funeral and when I leave the next day, their parents are able to undo any mental trauma by reassuring them that our bloodlines are far enough removed to avoid any crossover.
Not anymore.
I haven�t spoken with my sister since it happened. I figured I�d call her over the weekend, giving her a chance to experience the joys of cleaning feces from other people. I told Kelly tonight and she was shocked � shocked I tell you!
�Call your sister!� she cried, voice full of shock and gall. �You can�t wait until the weekend, she just had a baby!�
�She�s been pregnant for a while,� I said. �It�s not like it�s a surprise. It would be more of a surprise if she had a puppy. Or herpes.�
�Yeah, but she had a baby! You�re supposed to congratulate her!�
Fine. Here�s a message for my sister. Congratulations. You had sex and didn�t use protection. Have fun with the feces.
Still, as usual, I have unsolicited advice for the new little meatball-looking flesh ball. From what I�ve been told, it�s a fairly standard practice to write some bits of advice and wisdom for creatures who do little more than work as composting processing centers so that they can read them later when they�ve on the cusp of learning more than the alphabet, in hope to mold their blank little minds into good citizens.
Of course, I don�t really expect my sister to hold onto this to pass along � she�s been ignoring my advice for decades now. But being as narcissistic as myself, I�ll probably still have a copy when my niece comes of cognizance, meaning my sister should probably pre-screen any gifts I get for her after she gains control of her bodily functions. Though being as narcissistic as I am, she probably doesn�t have anything to worry about � I�m notorious for forgetting other people�s birthdays. Though I really can�t say this is entirely my fault, because most people don�t know how to promote.
By the way, my birthday is in the middle of April. I have lots of stuff on my wishlist at Amazon.
Anyway.
Dear little niece of mine,
If you�re reading this, then congratulations! Apparently you have sight and the ability to read. That means you already have a leg up on some of the population. You may have noticed this already, as it became painfully apparent to myself fairly early, and that is the fact that the majority of people are little better than sheep � very angry, dumb, and whiney sheep. And if you have indeed noticed this, then you�ve proven that we are related, no matter how often your parents try to assuage your fears.
So now you have a choice to make: do you join in with the rest of these bleating cattle, or find somewhere else to graze?
Don�t look toward your mother for answers. Kids are supposed to rebel against their parents, or at least the cool ones do. And your mom is not cool.
Not to say she�s not a good person, because she is. She�s actually probably committed more crimes than I have, since she used to steal our parent's cars on a regular basis. When I was little and being picked on, she�d come out and chase away the bullies. This of course got my ass kicked harder when she wasn�t around, but that�s another story. And surprisingly, since she associated with a lot of people who seemed very concerned with appearances, she always seemed to have a good sense of identity and self-worth.
But man, does she have horrible taste! That�s why I�m telling you that it�s OK to hate her music, because she really does listen to some god-awful crap. It�s fine to despise her sense of fashion, because really, have you noticed yet that pink keeps making a comeback? (the hue, not the singer, although she likes her as well.) She didn�t have to shop for new clothes when the trends became fashionable again because she just continued to look like a very tall Pepto Bismo bottle until she was suddenly in style again. And I�m pretty sure the Disney Corporation sends her thank you cards at Christmas because of all the worthless crap she�s purchased from them.
I can say this because I�m her brother, I�ve known her for the longest out of just about anybody, including your grandparents, because her father can�t remember anything anymore, and her mother never could relate.
I don�t mean to make this a disparaging rant against the woman who decided to have sex for something other than pleasure just so she could push you past lots of unmentionable naughty bits. She was, and is, a cool chick. But you�re going to reach a point where you�re very aware of what supposedly is �cool.� (Or whatever word you crazy kids are using for �cool� these days. Christ, I remember when �tight� meant that you were doing something rather cruel and uncalled for, and now it means that you did something unbelievably awesome. Read George Orwell, little one. Read Orwell a lot.
There are different levels of cool, and every clique thinks they have a monopoly on what the top tier is. They�re all wrong. If you�re worried about it, but genuinely just want to be happy, than I suggest you become a dork.
If this sounds like a really bad idea, I�m afraid you were already well on your way to dorkdom when your parents named you Ciera (pronounced Kear-ra.) My first reaction when reading your name was images of some sort of He-Man, Master of the Universe character. (Check Wikipedia if you�re confused.)
By the way, just once, do me a favor � At some point I�ll need to hear you say this in a deep, authoritative voice:
�I am Kear-ra, master of dorkness and destroyer of all things Disney-related and pink!�
Don�t fret though, because being a dork is great. There�s a reason why so many hot and smart girls proudly wear those shirts or bumper stickers that say �I Love Dorks.� Of course, since you�re a girl and all, you might not care about those hot girls. Or maybe you might. It�s a new age, and who am I to judge?
�I am Kear-ra, master of dorkness and destroyer of all things Disney related and pink! Except for vaginas, of which I have an affinity toward! The pink vaginas that is, not the Disney-related ones!�
Jeez, now I which I had a better sounding name so I could go around saying that.
You may have reached an age where you already think the term �dork� is derogatory. (Although who knows? By the time you read this, it might mean that you�ve reached a level of James Brown Super Badness.) But here�s the gist. Books are interesting, puppets are funny, cartoons are great, comic books are cool, and video games are fun.
I know these things, and I know I�m a dork. I�m such a dork that the most excitement I�ve had in the last year was finding out that the Mystery Science Theater 3000 guys got back together, only now they record the commentary to bigger flicks, which you then download from rifftrax.com and play at the same time as you watch your DVD version. I downloaded the commentary track for Daredevil, an action which catapulted me into the stratosphere of dorkdom.
But here�s the thing, little Ciera � being able to be so incredibly happy over something that most people would find so, well� dorky, proves that you don�t need an armful of positive reinforcement, new-agey affirmations or acceptance from others in the so-called �cool� crowd.
The newspaper that I work for recently had a �Wellness Issue,� which at the time of this writing was a pseudo-hippy way of pushing things like vegetarian diets and yoga on the unsuspecting masses. Your grandparents subscribed to these beliefs back before there was a term for such idiotic behavior, and all it got us were two single parents, sugarless gum and wheat germ on our ice cream before they came to their senses.
Your mother, like me, got our brains stuffed full with a lot of these virtues. �Free to be you and me.� Sesame Street, The Muppet Show, Schoolhouse Rock and The Electric Company are particular standouts, and I�m pretty sure she has most of those on DVD, though she�ll probably have to upgrade to yet another format before you�re old enough to watch them. There are some great lessons you can learn in those shows.
Actually, your mother knows that I based my entire philosophy in life from a skit performed by Muppets, so it�s possible that she�s burned all the evidence. Ask me about it next Thanksgiving.
Still though, if you choose the path of the Dork Side, you have to be a little wary of these people. Yes, there is something to be learned about tolerance, equality, and self-confidence. But they also typically only want to accentuate the positive. �Don�t worry, be happy,� they say with a perpetual smile and a slew of best-selling self-help books bought by people who are anything but happy. There�s a bit of phoniness to this behavior, and the easiest way to avoid it is with a bit of righteous indignation.
Notice, if you will, that all of these experts on how to be happy all espouse the same ideal � accepting others is the path to being happy with yourself.
Fuck that, my little master of dorkness. With this tonnage of books all saying the same thing and many being on the best selling list, why are people so miserable? And why do you need six books from the same author selling the same message? Affirmations? Hardly. It�s because it�s a temporary cure-all. You may feel good for a while focusing on the positive aspects of others, but you come from smart genes and it won�t take long before the only positive thing you can say about others is that they�re positively taking perfectly good air that could be yours.
That�s where the righteous indignation comes in, because believe me, there�s nothing more satisfying than occasionally simply saying, �Hey, you know what? Fuck you!�
Ready? Repeat after me:
�I am Kear-ra, master of dorkness and destroyer of all things Disney related and pink! Except for vaginas, of which I have an affinity toward! The pink vaginas that is, not the Disney-related ones! And you know what? Fuck you!�
And fuck you too, little niece of mine.
Fuck you too.
