The way people talk about this past year you'd think that the year 2016 literally gained sentience and lumbered into our homes like some kind of time-measurement based Kaiju monster, devoured all our cultural icons (except Cliff Richard who I am certain at this point is a Highlander) and grabbed us all by the pussy.
I mean it's not a totally unjustified feeling. As the curtains opened on the tragicomic play that was the year 2016 we all sat slack jawed, our seats becoming warmer with the addition of blood tinged terror piss as David Bowie went to join Major Tom in the stars beyond. Then he presumably decided that he was lonely and so he put in a call to Ground Control and up went Prince Rogers Nelson (yes, that was his name), Alan Rickman, Carrie Fisher, and on and on it went like the world's most depressing conveyer belt round in the Generation Game.
Hell I spent several months under the wrongheaded impression that Anthony Hopkins was dead until I eventually looked it up on Wikipedia. And who could blame me? The icy claw of Death was coming for anyone who had made an impression on us in our youths.
Beyond the first world problem of celebrities turning out to be mortal beings (except for Cliff Richard who bathes in the blood of virgins at every full moon), normal everyday people were being massacred by radicalized trucks down in France and Germany, causing mass deportation of all trucks from European countries. And speaking of Europe, both it and Britain went through a bit of a complicated divorce, with the children splitting down the middle into the older and jaded 'LEAVE' and the younger and arguably spoilt 'REMAIN'.
It was all very typical really. LEAVE, whilst he has his own little flaws and prejudices generally understands that adults will get tired of each other after about 20, 40, 60 years and that sometimes it's best that they split up before more people are hurt in the ongoing firefight of their relationship. Meanwhile REMAIN just wont accept it. Why do grown ups have to do this to their children? How could this have happened? It was you wasn't it LEAVE?! Yes you! You're just old and racist and shouldn't even be allowed to vote!
In the mean time the US was going through something kind of similar. They had to choose between Jabba the Hutt with Boris Johnson hair and Female Blofeld. And low and behold, when people eventually uncurled themselves from their fetal positions, stopped tearing out their hair and decided that maybe they were going to go out and vote instead of climbing up a bell tower and bestowing hot mercy upon the disenfranchised public; well fuck me backwards into a field of cacti if Jabba the Pussy Grabber didn't win. And the triggering ripple almost knocked the Earth from the orbit of the Sun.
Also Milo Yiannopolous got a book deal.
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| Seen here not being controversial. |
Consider our pussies grabbed everybody.
But we have to remember that out of chaos comes opportunity. Traversing the obstacles in our lives is what shapes our characters and makes us grateful for what we have, or something gay like that. It's a learning experience, and I'm here to tell you what I learned this past year.
1. Dad Jokes are an Abusive Patriarchal Force
In August of 2016 the internet, and humanity overall, was introduced to the man they call "Hugh Mungus."
Like Jesus before him took on the name of Christ, Rudy Pantoja took on the mantle of Hugh Mungus; a title passed down from dad to dad and Simpsons writer alike. Of course, very much like the aforementioned messiah, he knew not of his importance. Not until that beautiful day in Seattle when he was accosted by some sort of angry, shrieking emu with a camera - and the true extent of his power became clear.
Yes Rudy Pantoja, the real name of the God you see in the link above, attended a Seattle City Council meeting to discuss 'the Bunker' a new and expensive police precinct. Rudy, whose daughter he claims had been turned over to rehab for a drug problem with the help of the Seattle Police Department, was backing the somewhat awesomely named precinct in an interview to the local news channel. Little did he know however that it wouldn't be that interview that would grant him a spot in the 2016 hall of fame.
Unbeknownst to the security staff of the building some sort of sapient bird creature had skinned an innocent woman, worn it as a disguise and stolen her phone in order to enter the establishment and film our hero, apparently angry that her side wasn't getting as much coverage. Because as we all know; if you see a camera crew filming one person's opinion on a subject then you can be damn sure that that is the only interview they will film on that subject.
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| "KAW! KAW! (Sounds of a small mammal being devoured)" |
Upon breaking away from the camera crew, Rudy ran into the brick wall of crazy we now know as Zarna Joshi who very quickly asked for his name. Now we all know that there are certain people you never give your name to. Telemarketers, Wizards, and Feminists. The first will pass your details on to other telemarketing companies to make absolutely sure you will never eat dinner without being offered high quality double glazing ever again, the second will curse your name to the point of you wishing you had to deal with the first one instead, and the third one will actively ruin your life. So Rudy had to think quickly.
Sometimes a little pressure can create genius.
What followed was some sort of walk of shame as Mr Mungus calmly made his way through the building like a medieval criminal. Except in this case there was only one person throwing rotten fruit and cow shit at him and, arguably, she was the one more likely to be branded a social pariah after all this.
Eventually Ms Joshi turned her attention on the security guards as Hugh left the area, demanding to know their names as well. Some sources claim that the guards gave their names as "Ivana Tinkle" and "Amanda Hugginkiss", however these sources remain unverified.
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| "I've got a 'Rockard Johnson' here! Zarna! I think this one's for you!" |
The result was that Rudy became a major internet meme and Zarna became the defining example of an unhinged feminist. A genuinely insane, highly privileged professional victim with no sense of humour or understanding of human behavior to speak of. Or self awareness as we were later privy to once she graced the world with a scarily self-important series of videos, including a response to the Hugh Mungus incident which blamed the negative reactions to her accusations of sexual abuse on 'internalized misogyny'. Because if women disagree with you, then that must mean they hate themselves.
She went on with her victim narrative, even going so far as to ask for money on 'youcaring.com' to deal with the trauma of her pun based abuse. In the mean time Hugh/Rudy was offered money, but instead of taking it he asked that it be given to charity.
2. Hawaii is a Continent, and it's, Like, Really Offendeeeeeed
If there's one job out there I'm not sure I could handle, as the curmudgeonly misanthrope that I am, it would be "Taxi Driver". You spend hours, often through the night, trapped inside a moving metal box with some of the drunkest, most annoying people imaginable. Ever found yourself annoyed because a taxi cut you off? Well have a bit of fucking empathy, because for all you know that driver is probably locked in a life or death, rear view mirror staring contest with an angry, drunk PCP addict with tattoos on his eyeballs asking him if he's ever seen inside a dog before. That man is trying to reach his destination as quickly as possible so he doesn't have to hear another minute of this disheveled businessman sobbing over his divorce as he quietly mutters about good places to jump from. Our taxi drivers put up with this sort of shit on a regular basis and I salute them for it. Don't believe me?
Okay, perhaps not concrete evidence of nation wide taxi driver oppression, but you have to give this guy credit. After a mere five seconds of listening to this grating "Valley Girl" accent I probably would have steered the car towards the nearest ocean and, as a final Fuck You to this smug, arrogant creature staining my car seat with her presence, I'd pull out a marker, do myself up in black-face and yell out "Uh oh! The horses is outta control massuh sir!" before meeting the sweet wet oblivion of the North Sea.
In case you couldn't make it through the video for fear of not being able to stop yourself from digging your own eardrums out with a kebab skewer; what we have here is Annaliese Nielsen (founder of "GodsGirls", a "Suicide Girls"-esque alt-porn site and alleged online brothel). A woman who, upon jumping into a "Lyft" taxi cab, found herself at the center of an injustice that could put the feelings of an entire "continent" at stake.
And that continent was Hawaii.
Yes, this woman with a salary undoubtedly greater than her brain cell count decided to berate a taxi driver for exercising his right as a human individual and decorate his dashboard with a small Hawaiian Hula Girl figurine. Now most people would think "who gives a microscopic shit about what some working class dude sticks to his car dashboard?" But most people aren't Annaliese Nielsen. Most people aren't imbued with the power of intercontinental empathy. Most people weren't dashed off a stone step when they were a child. So Annaliese is a truly unique individual with an unending compassion for people she's never met before, and yet thinks so little of that she thinks they'd crawl into the fetal position and go catatonic at the sight of a 3 inch piece of plastic.
"So you wont get rid of the doll then? Because that was 'a really cute pick that you found at Goodwill.'"
This line here really gets me. "Goodwill" is a series of thrift stores, or charity shops, run through a non-profit organization. She's making fun of this man for being (supposedly) so poor that he has to shop at thrift stores. You see this is the sort of people that liberals used to make fun of; entitled, upper class elitists who look down their nose at others. Nowadays however the two seem to have merged. "I say old chap, that pleb of a driver of ours is in ownership of a highly racially insensitive figurine upon his dashboard! Hand me my riding crop! This peasant is in for the thrashing of his life I tell you!"
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| "Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets." |
Like Zarna before her she attempts to get the name of the driver, supposedly to put him on "Gawker" (good luck with that), which only cements her stupidity because, from what I hear, Lyft texts you the name of your driver before he/she shows up. Which she probably would have known if she weren't recording herself acting like a raging cunt. The other, unseen, passenger in the vehicle refers to her as "sad" before Annaliese demands her name as well. Eventually she refers to the driver as a "fucking selfish, dumbass idiot," which prompts the driver to, very calmly, eject her from the vehicle. Unfortunately he stopped the car first.
Luckily, due to the negative reaction that both she and Zarna got from these videos, it was the last time anyone would ever post a video harassing someone under the impression that they'd be hailed as some kind of hero for it.
3. Fidel Castro Was a Good and Loving Human Being Who Dindu Nuffin'
(Except Maybe Justin Trudeau's Mother)
Those of you who know me are probably well aware of my disdain for the current political left wing. It's constant PC pandering, it's elitist media, it's branding of anyone right of Karl Marx as a Nazi and it's demonization of gamers and video games themselves for "normalizing violence against women", despite having frequently criticized right wing commentators for very similar ideas in the past.
But I'm not here to go off on some political rant. So far our theme has surrounded people who are hilariously lacking in self-awareness. So what else can we find that matches our criteria? How about left wing politicians praising a murderous dictator?
Yup. That'll do it.
As Cuban exiles in Little Havana, Miami celebrated in the streets, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau praised Fidel Castro - after his death - as "a remarkable leader". Unfortunately he did not go on to explain how he "led" people to their deaths at the hands of his firing squads. Trudeau was entirely right, however, to say that Castro had a "deep and lasting impact on the Cuban people". It's just that those impacts tended to land somewhere near center mass and then hit the wall behind them.
The travesty of a democratically elected leader in a free country praising the dictator who helped bring the world to the brink of nuclear war wasn't lost on the denizens of Twitter however, as the hashtag #trudeaueulogies began to trend. Soon people were applying his own flawed logic to other pariahs of history.
The other thing that certainly wasn't lost on the media was the connection between Trudeau's family (particularly his father Pierre) and Castro, with Justin having met the dictator as a man. However the hashtag mockery quickly fell by the wayside when a bizarre theory emerged about Justin's parentage.
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Thanks Twitter hellspawn. I barely had to write any jokes at all.
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| Special thanks to Ashie who told me I was able to send myself pictures to save to my laptop. Smart arse. |
......
Moving on.
5. Graham Linehan Was Slowly Going Insane and We Didn't Realize It
Have you ever heard the saying "Never meet your heroes"? Well it should probably be updated to "Never follow your heroes on Twitter."
Yeah, that's comedy genius and writer of "Father Ted," "Black Books," and "The IT Crowd," as well as sketches on "The Day Today" and "Brass Eye," Graham Linehan making a massive, racial and gender based, assumption about a large group of people who had a different opinion from him.
This is, of course, in reference to the big controversy over the latest all female "Ghostbusters" film, whose trailer was criticized by fans of the franchise as being awful in almost every conceivable way. And naturally, since the left wing press can only see things in terms of gender, race and sexuality, they automatically assumed that they were complaining because they didn't want cooties and girl tears all over their beloved franchise. When in fact what they didn't want all over their beloved franchise was shit.
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| Oh god, I'm about to watch this. |
But I digress. It's one thing when one of your heroes disagrees with you on a political issue. That's absolutely fine and if you find yourself unfollowing or unfriending someone based on a mere opinion then I automatically declare you hilarious and you should probably grow a pair of nuts and accept that not everyone is going to agree with you on everything. It's another thing entirely when said hero generalizes an entire group of people based on a differing opinion....
Or calls you stupid simply for respectfully disagreeing with him....
It's at that point where you might have to come to the uncomfortable conclusion that your hero may be an ideologue.
But now you're probably wondering, "Glenn, I understand, it sucks when it turns out a person you look up to is a bit of a raging cock. But surely this isn't any kind of basis for calling him insane. He's just expressing his opinion in an overly arrogant way. Everyone does that." And you would be right. The title of this segment is mostly for the purpose of hyperbole. However....
"WE BEAT 'EM BEFORE, WE'LL BEAT 'EM AGAIN!"
I remember hearing a favourite commentator of mine talking about cult behavior. One of the things that's symptomatic of cult behavior is establishing an "other". Someone outside of your group who aren't worth your time or any semblance of understanding or compassion. Anyone outside of the group can be put into this category. In this case we see the definition of "Nazi" being changed from "someone who subscribes to the ideology of the National Socialist Party of Germany in the 30s and 40s under Adolf Hitler" to "someone who holds a differing opinion from me, and also who probably isn't really human and so it's perfectly morally acceptable to skewer them with a bayonet."
Now understand that this isn't me defending Nazis or anything. I want to make that very clear. What I'm trying to point out is that when you define an entire group of people as something that is perfectly okay to hate and despise.... well....
Now of course this could just be a joke. He's a comedy writer after all. I am by no means suggesting that Graham Linehan is advocating for a Final Solution against Trump supporters. You didn't actually click on Alex Jones' secret hidden blog.
But this is a sad reality when it comes to the political sphere these days. Sometimes a differing opinion makes you less human in the eyes of others.
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| No one is safe from the virus. |
6. You Can Still Become the Leader of the Free World, Even if you are Literally Hitler
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Yes, I will use this photo whenever I get the chance! What of it!?
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I've given my opinion on Trump so many times that those of you who know me are probably sick and tired of it by now. But here it is one more time for those of you who missed it:
I think he's a brash, uncouth, narcissistic moron with little to no grasp of humour or the English language. He's a human cringe-fest whose biggest claim to fame is yelling the words "YOU'RE FIRED" at mini corporate psychopaths in waiting. I don't think he's literally Hitler though, because only Hitler was literally Hitler, and Hitler killed Hitler. Therefore Trump is not and cannot be literally Hitler, no matter how many times you change the definition of "literally" to "figuratively" in the dictionary.
I've also given my opinion of Hillary Clinton. I think she's a glorified criminal whose political past is so littered with skeletons you could use it as the prop room for a Hammer Horror film.
Basically America did not have the greatest of choices when it got down to the last two contenders. Hell they didn't have the best of choices when there were more than two. But what I take away from it all is this....
The establishment hated Trump. But they loved Hillary. But the people decided "No. Fuck the establishment," and so it was done. Same with Brexit in Britain. The establishment wanted to stay, the people said Leave. What this tells me is that the voice of the people still matters. We say "jump," and the powers that be will eventually have to say "How high?"
I don't see Trump as a leader. I see him as a lumbering super bowl mascot. A symbol of that time people rose up and told the elitists in the media and in government that they could fuck off and die in a fire. It's for this reason that I have no fears for either Britain or America in 2017. Like every other year it will have its good times and it will have its horrors. Some of the horrors might even be caused by our decisions in the past year. Perhaps Britain will completely collapse upon it's exit from the E.U. Perhaps Trump will turn entire states into concentration camps and women will have to walk the streets wearing protective iron underwear. Perhaps....
Perhaps none of that will happen.
Relax.
Relax.
It's a new year.
Enjoy the light show.
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| SHOOOULD OOOOOLD AQUAINTANCE BEEEE FORGOT...! |
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