Whenever I talk to a young person — like some of the teenagers in my neighborhood, or this one toddler, Maxie, or even a couple of fetuses I run into occasionally — I say to them: trust me, guys, enjoy your youth, because the level of sex and violence is going to continue to escalate, and by the time you’re my age, the world of your youth will seem like a distant, innocent paradise. The teenagers and the toddler, Maxie, sometimes they seem to get it, but the fetuses — well, you know fetuses, they’re arrogant. To them, it’s always going to be a soft gentle ride in a warm comfortable space. And I’m like, OK smart guy, call me in nine months and we’ll talk. Or I will! You’ll just be lying there pink and newborn, with a terrified look on your face, apologizing to me with those little shocked eyes.
Things just keep getting worse. Why, I suspect that, in forty years, when I’m eighty-seven, I’ll look back at the present level of sex and violence and go: Ha! Ho ho! You called that sex and violence? That was nothing. That was Puritanism and pacificism compared to now! But then I’ll have to go, because it’ll be Stripper Night at the old folks’ home, and I’ll have to find my costume and my back brace, but on the way there I’ll be killed by a mysterious old folks’ home invader, who actually works for Fox, and is committing and filming my murder for later broadcast on When Codgers on Their Way to Strip Look Terrified!
Same with music though, right? I used to love music, back when it had melody and chords and lyrics. But now it has no melody and no chords, just thwack-thwacking, and they even seem to be cutting back on the thwack-thwacking, so now it’s sometimes just thwa, and as far as lyrics, do you consider these lyrics?
Hump my hump,
My stumpy lumpy hump!
Hump my dump, you lumpy slumpy dump!
I’ll dump your hump, and then just hump your dump,
You lumpy frumply clump.
I’m sorry. To me? Those are not lyrics. In my day, lyrics were used to express real emotion, like the emotion of being totally stoned and trying to talk this totally stoned chick into sleeping with you in the name of love, which lasted forever, if only you held on to your dreams.
These kids today, I don’t know what they believe. I mean, I don’t even know what I believe anymore, but what I do not believe is that watching Paris Hilton and Jessica Simpson roll around in pizza sauce is helping our youth as they go forth and try to figure out what they believe! Scientific evidence suggests that even the fetuses inside of mothers watching that commercial are getting: (1) dumber and (2) little baby boners. I do not go for that. I think that when a fetus is in the womb it should just be floating around with its undersized arrogant head empty and its little nascent penis just, you know, inactive. We grow these kids up too fast, and next thing you know, out come the Indian and the Chinese fetuses, and they start taking away the jobs of our homeland fetuses, and why? Because these foreign fetuses aren’t jaded. They’re innocent like I was, like my whole generation was, when we were fetuses, back in those long-forgotten idyllic days when American fetuses walked the earth like happy unsoiled giants, doing algebra and reading the classics.
And yet I don’t like the fact that I’ve become a prude. Life expectancies being what they are, I may only be halfway through my life, and who wants to live out half of one’s life as a prude? Not me. I want to live out about one-tenth of my life as a prude, that last tenth, when I’m inert and confused and immobile anyway. So I’ve decided to start prude-proofing myself via a process of daily microimmersions in sex and violence. Last week, for example, I sat on my couch looking at a bra for over an hour. Then I forced myself to watch a video of a duck being hit by a car. Then I tried listening to the sound of the duck on the video being hit by the car, while looking at the bra. Next, I turned up the sound, while looking at a slightly sexier bra. Then I watched the duck being hit while I ran my hand over the bra. Then I had my wife put on the bra, which was a very effective technique, because as I tried to run my hand over the bra my wife hit me with an ashtray just as the duck was hit by the car — one of the best microimmersions in sex and violence a guy could ask for.
And tonight is my biggest depruding test yet: I am going to, while hitting myself with a brick and begging my wife to walk by in her bra, watch an episode of DreamYerFinalDream!, on which a contestant selected from a field of more than five thousand applicants will be granted his FinalDream, which, in this case, is to be beaten nearly to death with a tire iron so Carmen Electra can come in naked and give him a lap dance in the final moments of his life.
I have high hopes. I know I can do this. If I succeed, our whole culture will once again be open to me. And who knows? I may even go see a movie.
ASK THE OPTIMIST!
Dear Optimist:
My husband, who knows very well that I love nothing more than wearing bonnets, recently bought a convertible. He’s always doing “passive-aggressive” things like this. Like once, after I had all my teeth pulled, he bought a big box of Cracker Jack. Another time, when I had very serious burns over 90 percent of my body, he tricked me into getting a hot oil massage, then tripped me so that I fell into a vat of hydrochloric acid. I’ve long since forgiven him for these “misunderstandings,” but tell me, is there a way I can be “optimistic” about this “bonnet” situation?
Mad Due to No More Bonnets,
Cleveland, Ohio
Dear Mad:
You can still wear bonnets while riding in a convertible! But you will just have to have more of them to start with! What I recommend? Buy a large number of bonnets, place them in the car, begin driving! When one blows off, put on another from your enormous stockpile! And just think of all the happiness you will create in your wake, as people who cannot afford bonnets scurry after your convertible, collecting your discards! Super!
Dear Optimist:
Upon returning from vacation, we found our home totally full of lemons. I mean totally. The cat even had one in its mouth. What do you recommend?
Sourpuss,
Seattle, Washington
Dear Sourpuss:
That is a tough one! What I recommend is, when life gives you lemons: (1) Buy a bunch of Hefty bags! (2) Fill the Hefty bags with lemons! (3) Lug the bags to the curb! And (4) Call a certified waste-disposal contractor to haul away the pile of lemons now rotting in the sun! Before long, like magic, your home will be lemon-free — and you can celebrate by going out and having something cold to drink! And don’t forget to give Kitty a jaw massage!
Dear Optimist:
My wife is a terrific artist — except when it comes to me! Whenever she paints me, my legs are half the length of my torso, my face looks like the face of a frog, my feet are splayed outward unattractively like the feet of some hideous reptile, and I have a smug, pinched look on my face. Anyone else she paints, they look exactly like themselves. I pretend not to notice, but recently, at my wife’s one-woman show, I could tell our friends were discussing this, and I felt embarrassed. How might I have handled this in a more optimistic way?
Hurt But Hopeful,
Topeka, Kansas