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Handle Me at My Worst
“I'm selfish, impatient and a little
insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But
if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at
my best.” ― Marilyn Monroe
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That quote. That fucking quote. We have all seen it before. From the inside of high school locker doors to the lower back tattoos of 38 year olds still clinging to the absurd notion that real men should be like Nicholas Sparks characters (and all the Facebook statuses and campus poster sales in-between), that quote is everyfuckingwhere. I'd take a steaming load of "dance like no one's watching" all over my face ten times out of ten rather than be reminded that you're "selfish, impatient and a little insecure..." every time you have a fight with your boyfriend/girlfriend.
Ignoring the source for a minute, let us just examine the quote, shall we?
“I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle."
Congratulations, this is wonderful news! You have identified your faults, which is (as the cliche says) the first step towards remedying them. I am genuinely proud of you, that is not an easy step to take. Don't worry, I can help:
First, we can all be selfish at times (there are some who will tell you that there is absolutely nothing wrong with that), and we have all been guilty of impatiently tapping our foot when the elevator takes longer than usual to get to us. Insecurity is nothing to be ashamed of; we live in a world where we are bombarded every minute of every day by advertisements telling us we aren't living or thinking or feeling the right way. These are very common traits among human beings and, with a little introspection and self-improvement, your interpersonal relationships need not be sabotaged by them.
Next, making mistakes is not even a character fault! Mistakes are to be celebrated. They allow us to learn from and correct our behaviour so that we may live happier fuller lives that better benefit ourselves and those around us. Do not worry that you make mistakes, just view them as learning opportunities and try not to make a habit out of the same damaging mistakes.
That last part is a bit more worrisome, but not altogether damning. If you are out of control and hard to handle, you are not a lost cause. It is 2012, people are now better equipped to understand such issues. Go to your doctor and ask them to refer you to a mental health specialist who can identify the cause of your problems and talk you through the recovery process. You are not broken, it is going to be okay.
The fact that you are cognizant of these collective behaviours means that you recognize how they are damaging your quality of life and hurting those around you. But with a little work you can stop hurting your loved ones and...
"But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.”
Oh.
Oh, I see.
So you are 100% aware of how all these (easily rectifiable) character faults are negatively affecting the lives of your friends, family and significant others but you flat-out refuse to change. Not only do you refuse to change, but you view it as some kind of test that people need to pass in order to experience "your best."
Kind of like how at a restaurant you are expected to eat mouthful after mouthful of human effluence in order to earn the right to order their award winning dessert. Kind of like how Chris Brown is a great singer and an unreal dancer, and all we have to do in order to enjoy that is completely ignore how he's an unapologetic monster. Kind of like how when you go to the movie theatre they make you sit through three hours of graphic bestiality scenes before they let you watch the film you came to see.
Hey, wait a minute! I just remembered! That is not how life works at all! No one in their right mind would stand for any of that bullshit, just like no one in their right mind should stand for your childish "take it or leave it" attitude.
I have done my best to keep this gender neutral lest my point be dismissed as simple sexism, but this next part is targeted specifically at women who bring out this quote every time they face adversity in life:
It does not make you a feminist because you refuse to change the things about yourself that hurt the people around you. This attitude does not make you a strong or independent woman. In fact if you live by this mantra then SURPRISE, you are a horrible misogynist and your very existence is damaging to women everywhere! Yay!
You are a fucking asshole and you know it. If every time you come face to face with that fact you hide behind this bullshit "I'm a woman, take me as I am" shield then you are simply furthering the archaic notion that women are unreasonable slaves to their emotions and men just have to deal with it to get to the creamy goodness at the centre (the implication being, it could be argued, that the "good" is sexual gratification).
Fuck you. Change. Being an asshole is not okay. (Being a self-aware yet unrepentant asshole is even worse)
To cleanse your palate enjoy some pictures of people who have made a lifelong commitment to never attempting to better themselves:
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your worst = shitty forearm tats
your best = i dunno, probably your tits or else you wouldn't have gone to the trouble of carefully positioning them into the shot
conclusion = kill yourself
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It's all there: The quote, the Chanel 5, the glamorous lights, the.. uh.. nude corpse of a fallen starlet who has apparently overdosed on those pills scattered about the vanity. It's the total package!
I don't understand why someone decided to tattoo it on a frozen Thanksgiving turkey, though.
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When I saw this as a GIS thumbnail I thought that was a tampon string and I was so excited I nearly lost my mind.
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"If you can't handle my armpit stubble, dead tooth and shitty tattoo then you don't deserve my fake beauty mark and $15 wig..."
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Still unconvinced? Remember at the beginning when I suggested we ignore the source of the quote for a minute to better focus on the quote itself? Let's not do that anymore. Let's talk Marilyn Monroe.
Marilyn Monroe was an icon; Marilyn Monroe was a legend; Marilyn Monroe was a manic depressive, pill-addicted alcoholic who was committed to a mental institution.
Understand this: every time you quote Marilyn Monroe you are quoting the opiate-induced ramblings of a literal mental patient.
It might be time to re-evaluate.
Merry Christmas from DannoMack's Angels
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZd89Q6esxo
To show you guys how much I love you, my beautiful turtle doves put together a special gift for the holidays JUST FOR YOU!
In Theory...
In theory, the shirt I am wearing is my favourite shirt.
It is black, and therefore slimming, so it hides the love handles I inherited from my father better than hours of cardio and my war against simple carbs ever could. (While I am forever grateful for inheriting my dad's sense of humour, I really can't decide which family trait of his I am least grateful to have inherited. Right now it is a three way tie between the love handles, the big nose, and the underwhelming penis... but in 30 years or so, I have a feeling heart disease may run away with that title.)
In theory the shirt I am wearing is my favourite shirt.
It is tight in the shoulders, chest and upper arms. So, while the colour slims the waist, the fit makes it easier to "check my progression" every time I walk past a store window (FYI: if you don't check yourself out whenever you walk past a reflective surface, you might as well pack it in and start wearing yoga pants every day). It also makes it easier for me to make girls spontaneously orgasm all over the sidewalk by flexing my biceps at them. It's the little things in life.
In theory the shirt I am wearing is my favourite shirt.
It has The Beatles' Rubber Soul album cover on it in greyscale. The Beatles have been my favourite band since I was 8, and I've never owned an iPod that didn't always have at least one Beatles song on it. However, saying you love The Beatles is like saying you love pizza. Of course you love The Beatles. Everyone loves the fucking Beatles.
For some reason, though, rockists seem to think that being a fan of the biggest band in the history of bands puts them in a secret club for people with especially discerning musical tastes. As a result, when I wear this shirt in public I am treated to all the perks that are afforded by musical elitist hipsters to one of their own (these perks include nearly undetectable nods and slightly less hateful sneers than usual. Filthy hipsters all work in retail and spend their money on varying styles of oxblood Docs so having their respect doesn't really offer anything of actual worth or substance. Except BJs. They offer BJs. BJs are of actual worth and substance.) I also think Rubber Soul is their most underrated album (as underrated as a Beatles album ranked number 5 all time on the Rolling Stone top 500 can be at least). White Album, Sgt Pepper's and Revolver all seem to be people's go-to favourite Beatles records, but Rubber Soul had In My Life on it. If we were putting together a tournament to determine the greatest Beatles song ever, In My Life would be my darkhorse pick to bust everyone's brackets in the first few rounds. In My Life is an incredible song.
In theory the shirt I am wearing is my favourite shirt.
In reality I hate this fucking shirt. It has all those desirable qualities and yet I just don't like it. I haven't worn it in public since the summer, and it is definitely going to be in the next batch of clothing I donate to the Salvation Army.
Last month I started a list in my phone of all the things that, in theory, I should like a lot, but in actuality hate for no real reason. If I were to have posted the list, it would have looked like this (all sic):
Thingsihatebutshoudlove
-Rubber sould shirt. Fuck that shirt man
-Natalie portman eh yknow just eh
-Ricky gervais that fuckr ruined talking funny
-Marilyn pillheadhomewrecking alcoholic shouldnt be your hero "love me at my worst" fuck your worst you nightmare of a human being
-Coke$$$ +
-Blondes amanda
-zooey deschanel try playing a different characterfor once also if you dontliek the spotlight dont make millions from it dummy
-Rubber sould shirt. Fuck that shirt man
-Natalie portman eh yknow just eh
-Ricky gervais that fuckr ruined talking funny
-Marilyn pillheadhomewrecking alcoholic shouldnt be your hero "love me at my worst" fuck your worst you nightmare of a human being
-Coke$$$ +
-Blondes amanda
-zooey deschanel try playing a different characterfor once also if you dontliek the spotlight dont make millions from it dummy
Most of those were typed one-handed while driving, and I have no idea who Amanda is or why she made me decide that I hate blondes, but that's the list. I really thought it was going to manifest iteself into a great premise for a comeback entry, then I ended up burying the lede in 600 words about this stupid shirt, and now we're done. Stupid fucking shirt. See how it ruins everything?
Mon Rory
I'm told that it's common - upon losing a loved one - to replay your last interaction with them in your mind again and again. This past Monday (June 20th, 2011) I lost my father Stephen McCallum at age 56, and our final interaction has, indeed, crept into my mind numerous times since then.
However, in an example of today's modern technology making life more convenient, while simultaneously robbing its important moments of some of their poignancy, said final interaction was in the form of text messages. I imagine that scenario is not uncommon in 2011, and it does not make it any less significant to me, but I am acutely aware that the phrase "my father's final texts to me" sounds like a line from a modern-day re-imagining of The Princess Bride.
Having said that, my father's final text to me occurred hours before his death, and it consisted of two words:
"Mon Rory."
Not even two words, really. A word and a bit is more like it. My dad texted like he spoke, in a Northern Irish accent, using slang from over 'ome. As you may have surmised on your own, "mon" is the shortening of "come on". It is used as a way of showing support for someone or something (don't believe me? Ask urban dictionary! Although you'd think you'd just take my word for it, on something like this. Jerk). He had just watched Rory McIlroy torch the field at the US Open en route to his first major championship.
I know this because all weekend he'd been furiously texting people about Rory and his dominance at Congressional Country Club. He'd come a long way in his mobile phone prowess since he sent his first ever text to me five years ago, which consisted of a series of Japanese characters (he'd somehow managed to change his phone's language settings to Japanese, and required a factory reset to fix it), and texting had become our primary form of communication between visits.
Much of the time my dad and I spent together was occupied watching sports. NHL, EPL, and MLB were my favourites for us to watch, but during PGA Tour season I'd acquiesce and endure the major championships, despite having very little interest in golf. I only really knew of Mike Weir (because he's Canadian) and Tiger Woods (because he's Tiger Woods), but my dad followed it closely, to the point of being in a fantasy golf pool online (also, judging by the trophies I once found shoved in a drawer in the basement of the house I grew up in, my dad was a pretty talented golfer while in school). I remember watching the third round of The Masters at my dad's house in April, and how thrilled he was that Rory McIlroy and the Ulster flag were atop the leaderboard. I also remember receiving no texts from him the next day, once Rory began to fall out of contention.
Rory with his dad after winning the US Open.
My dad loved when an Ulster boy made good. Having lived in Canada for years, he'd long-since grown accustomed to people not differentiating between Northern Ireland and Ireland over here, but whenever someone from Norn Iron gained international notoriety, he enjoyed the opportunity to educate people on the difference (he was a teacher for more than 20 years, and enjoyed the opportunity to educate people on anything at all for that matter).
Ever since his run at the Masters, many have wondered whether Rory McIlroy is The Next Tiger Woods. It seems a bit silly how often people rush to anoint a young athlete "the next _____", and (as I alluded to earlier) I know very little about golf, so I have no insight as to whether Rory is the next anything. What I do know is that, beginning with the British Open next month, I suddenly care about the leaderboards of major championships from here on in. Or, more specifically, where the Ulster flag will sit on said leaderboards.
Mon Rory.
Justin Bieber is Ready to Settle Down
In a statement liable to crash twitter, Canadian pop sensation Justin Bieber announced today that he is breaking off his much talked about relationship with singer Selena Gomez, stating that she "just doesn't have enough posters of [him] in her bedroom," and that she was occasionally a bit of a "poopy head."
I just came.
"I want a girl who already knows every minute detail of my life," the 12-year-old from Stratford, Ontario told me over Chips Ahoy cookies and Kool-Aid in his grandmother's rec room. "Like, I don't want to waste any time with the boring getting to know each other junk. I just want to meet a girl decked out from head-to-toe in my merch, who knows every word to every one of my songs, and who tweets me no fewer than 300 times a day telling me she loves me. Like, how else am I gonna know it's true love unless she tweets #ILoveYouJustin every 4.8 minutes, y'know? If I could find a girl like that, I'd marry her tomorrow!"
Last November, Bieber was linked romantically to the girl pictured above, however things fell apart when she turned 13 and "got really into hardcore music like My Chemical Romance."
But the famously hardworking Bieber rarely has any downtime, where does today's modern-tween-billionaire-on-the-go meet girls?
"I hope to spot my soulmate in the crowd at one of my concerts," he explained to me. "It's hard though, because there are so many screaming girls in the audience! But I know that if a girl really loves me, she'll scream my name EXTRA loud, so I can hear her over all the other girls who clearly don't love me enough to scream the loudest."
I wish the Bieb all the luck in the world in his search for love, but what are the chances that a girl who fits that description actually exists?
Ronald McDonald: Remorseless Child Murderer
Hundreds of Doctors Urge Man to Wash Face for the Sake of the Children
If this man doesn't wash his face soon, millions of six-year-olds will drive themselves to McDonald's, buy Happy Meals with the money they earn from their jobs, and then DIE.
A group known as Corporate Accountability International published a letter in major US Newspapers urging McDonald's to retire their mascot Ronald McDonald, claiming that he is an aid in marketing unhealthy food to children.
In the letter - signed by nearly 600 health professionals and organisations - the group asserts that "marketing can no longer be ignored as a significant part of this massive problem." The group would like to see Ronald McDonald - a figure most commonly associated with Happy Meals and with the award winning Ronald McDonald House Charities - removed completely from all McDonald's locations, commercials and products. This same group succeeded in getting cigarette mascot Joe Camel banned in 1997.
A spokesperson for the group said that, when they put it to a vote, it was decided that soliciting hundreds of doctors to sign a letter, then paying thousands of dollars in advertising fees to get it printed in major papers across the USA, was more practical than the alternative: teaching parents to say "NO" to their fat little children.
First they came for the fast-food clown,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a fast-food clown.
Then they came for the cartoon cereal mascots,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a cartoon cereal mascot.
Then they came for the Pillsbury Doughboy,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Pillsbury Doughboy.
Then they came for me,
and I whined and cried until my parents bought me a pony because apparently it's literally impossible not to give in to your child's every demand.
Sports Notes
Charl Schwartzel Tak Ho the Gre Jack at the 20 Maste Tourname
Going into Sunday of this year's Masters tournament, there were two stories which were objectively the biggest. The first was whether Tiger Woods was "on the prowl" or "in the hunt" for his 15th major championship (most experts believe he was "on the prowl", but a few big names such as Tom Kite and Nick Faldo suggested he was actually "in the hunt"). The second was 14 year old Northern Irish golf prodigy Rory McIlroy's dominance of the field up to that point, and whether or not he would have enough time following the round to finish his science fair project for Monday morning.
The Elias Sports Bureau confirms, however, that literally no one on the planet was talking about Charl Schwartzel. Even his parents, Abbiga and Alexand Schwartzel, were more concerned about Rory and his science fair woes. "What are they doing having that poor boy tee off so late in the day?" Abbiga asked ESPN.com. "A papier mache volcano needs at least twelve hours to dry. He'll never get it done at this rate!" She was right, of course, as the looming deadline and pressure not to disappoint his lab partner proved too much for the 8th-grader to cope with, and he quickly fell down the leader board. No word on his grade at the science fair.
I think this is Charl Schwartzel, but can anyone ever be truly certain?
After wasting 45 minutes interviewing a busboy named Kevin whom I thought was Charl Schwartzel (let me go on record as saying that Augusta National having their busboys wear green sportcoats seems unnecessary and confusing), I did manage to ask the real Masters champion a question about his motivation going into the back nine, and this is what he said:
"I just kept thinking about [co-leaders] Adam Scott and Luke Donald," Schwartzel told me, his eyes filling with tears of rage. "It's just so unfair, those two guys have FOUR first names between them, and I don't even have ONE! There was no damn way I was going to let those spoiled bastards beat me!"
Masters Notes:
-Mike Weir is bad at golf.
-An Augusta official had to be called to the 8th hole on Sunday to make a ruling when PGA veteran Angel Cabrera's caddy remarked to him that "this is a big chip coming up here," and Cabrera tried to put salsa on it. He was penalized two strokes.
Phil Simms Fatally Stabs JCPenney Employee
CBS football analyst and former NFL quarterback Phil Simms is back in the news again. The two time Super Bowl champion - who, last month, was linked to a series of severe indian burns given to schoolchildren suspected of calling his granddaughter a "doody-head" - was arrested Sunday afternoon following an altercation at a JCPenney in Franklin, New Jersey.
Phil Simms, capo famiglia of the Simms crime syndicate.
Eyewitness reports claim that Simms and his wife Diana were shopping at the store around 1:30pm EST, and Mrs. Simms was experiencing difficulty with zipping up the dresses she had asked the sales associate to bring to her.
"She was stretching them frocks all out," one man (who requested that his identity be kept anonymous for fear of reprisal from the 1987 Super Bowl MVP) told us. "She looked like a sock full of jawbreakers."
When the sales associate discretely suggested that his wife "might be more comfortable in a size nine," Simms allegedly produced a corkscrew from his jacket pocket and plunged it repeatedly into the man's chest while shouting phrases that police reports allege to have been latin. In keeping with JCPenney's strict media policy, the name of the deceased has not been made public.
This is not the first time Simms' temper and protective nature towards his family has gotten him in hot water. In 2006, defensive back Rashad Bauman - who is best known for his 2000 interception of Simms' son Chris while playing for the University of Oregon Ducks football team - was forced to retire from the NFL after Phil Simms broke both of his femurs with a sledgehammer. Simms received four years probation and 200 hours of community service for his part in the attack.
Things 2
As always, any links you click will open in a separate tab, so click the links for context without fear!
Limitless
So Bradley Cooper's new film is about a guy who discovers Adderall? Am I missing something?
Nicknames
If I were famous, I would use that fame to bestow nicknames on athletes. I give athletes nicknames now, but the only people who ever hear them are my friends or my paltry 139 twitter followers, and they're mostly porn stars or robotic spam devices (MY FRIENDS THAT IS! HA! JOKEPOINT! 1 - 0 FOR ME!). So if anyone famous ever stumbles across this (I'm fairly certain Orlando Bloom is one of my 18 regular readers, if the guy who keeps emailing pictures of his junk is to be believed), can you please make it so the following two athlete nicknames catch on?:Luke "Mike Ty"Schenn - Because the Leafs already have Keith "Muhammad" Aulie (I didn't make that nickname up. Someone famous did, no doubt), and Luke "Mike Ty"Schenn is a better puncher than he is.
Jake "The Hurt" Locker - I've been calling Jake Locker after the implausibly overrated 2010 best-picture winner since 2009, and it hasn't caught on. This is likely because I only call him this around the 5 or 6 guys I watch football with on weekends, and none of them happen to be Chris Berman. My friends are such selfish fucks, why couldn't ONE of them be Chris Berman for me for just one day? Pricks.
Oscars
Anne Hathaway & James Franco didn't really do all that badly as Oscar hosts. Hathaway was full of energy, and Franco had the Norm MacDonald dry-sociopathic-I-may-be-on-drugs-you-will-never-know-for-sure-but-I-am-going-to-continue-making-jokes-that-are-only-funny-to-me-and-my-buddy-standing-just-offstage thing going which I really liked. Unfortunately, their material was crap, and the production was shitty as a whole. Which means, of course, that it was all Bruce Vilanch's fault.
Plus, look how pretty they both are! Winning!
Kelly Leak is married to Cammi Granato
- Ray Ferraro and Jackie Earle Haley look alike.
Which one has 898 career points and which one is Rorschach? I can't tell either!
Bill Simmons Hits a Home Run
This weekend, Bill Simmons wrote his first truly great column in three years. I've been a Simmons fan since I still had AOL, but over the past half-decade, he's moved to California, become a multi-millionaire and a celebrity in his own right. More power to him, he's living my dream, but unfortunately he built his career as an everyman sportsfan who has his finger on the pulse of the Boston sports scene. However, his latest column about the possible NFL labour stoppage is one of the best sports columns of 2011 so far. Also, Simmons' new website with Lane Brown, Katie Baker, and Chuck Klosterman appears as though it is going to be superb in a way that makes me sad I will never get to be a part of it. 2011 may be Bill Simmons' comeback year.
Ur So Gay
In 2007, Katy Perry released the single Ur So Gay, which became her first mainstream hit. As you can see in the video linked in the previous sentence, the song is about KP breaking up with her boyfriend because he is fashion-forward, and likes "gay" things like poetry and Mozart. Now I don't give a fuck about whether or not it's politically correct, and neither should you, you sanctimonious prat, but I do think it's well funny that three years later she married Russel Brand.
Russel Brand is as fashion-forward as any man on the planet, wears more eye makeup than Mimi from The Drew Carey Show, and is a huge Kerouac fan. One of my Profs likened Russel Brand to Ginsberg and Larkin in a lecture last year. Ironic as heck, and another example of a girl complaining about her "type" but not doing anything to change it.
Don't worry, Google knows what you're going to ask...
how to be the best
posted by dannomack
