* Title taken from a Tom Waits contribution to Keith Richards’ Life, which I’ve almost finished (give me a break, I read it on my lunch break) and love so much.  I’m sure I’ll be pissed that I used such a wonderful phrase for this piece of whatever, but you might agree that it fits later on.

I’m going to my dad’s house tonight to help him update his resume.  He’s not leaving his current job, but he says he wants to keep his options open.  I think this is because he was recently dumped, which hasn’t happened since he was at least 26 years old (this is when he started hanging out with my mother, who he ended up dumpeing several years ago).  I know a lot of people who attempt major sweeping changes when they get dumped.  They quit jobs.  Buy pets.  Move away.  I’ve briefly considered doing things like this before, but my usual “fuck that asshole, I’m not changing” attitude always prevails.  Which is probably a good thing, because I’ve looked at real estate prices in New Zealand and they are fucking insane.

Right about here is where I started writing a bunch of stuff about my job and why, earlier today, I felt a very strong compulsion to claw my own brain out of its little bowl and hurl it against the fucking wall.  Then I deleted it.  Because I’m smarter at the Internet than you think.

Instead of writing about it, I’m going to a Cool Kids Happy Hour tomorrow night.  If you didn’t hear about it, it’s either because we plan on talking shit about you or think you’re unable to talk shit on other people.  So hey, sorry bro.  Try being a bigger asshole and then maybe you’ll get invited next time.  Also, what the fuck are you doing here?  How did you find me?  What kind of pathetic stalker are you?

So I won’t talk about work, but I am about to commit a supercrime of the Internet.  This:

This makes these guys sound like huge douchebags.  Like I said, I know that talking shit on Dave Holmes makes me a terrible person or whatever, but…jeez.  Over-intellectualizing Twitter?  Mentioning, even self-deprecatingly so, that you posted something you considered to be your “best work” and it only got a couple of re-tweets?  Hanging out with that bullshit mohawk guy who co-wrote a self-help book and is now obviously on blow?

What the fuck?

And AGAIN, I like Dave Holmes.  I agree with almost everything he writes.  I also enjoyed the idea of “A Drink With Dave” and probably all of the episodes aren’t so douchey.  It’s just…fuck, Dave.  Really?  You’re that important?

Maybe I’m just so pissed because here, Dave Holmes reminds me of this former friend of mine.  Like most of my former friends, I completely misread this person from the start (misreading people is a talent of mine, btw).  However, the person I’d initially thought was smart, interesting, and confident turned out to be intellectually vain, dull outside of carefully chosen pop culture references, and completely narcissistic.

It took me years to realize this.  Years of shitty conversation, condescension dressed up as advice, and my excuses for this person’s behavior.  “He sounds bad, but he just comes off like that.”  Uh, yeah, more like “he sounds like a conceited piece of shit because he is a conceited piece of shit.”  Actually, I think I stayed friends with him for so long because for all his jackassery, he never made me feel stupid.  Maybe not for lack of trying (I have no idea but I still don’t think he’s an awful person), but because I knew I wasn’t stupid.  He wasn’t smarter than me.  He couldn’t make me feel inferior because I wasn’t.  So fuck that guy.  And no, I never dated him.

It’s Dave Holmes’ face in that video that gets me.  Supplemented by those shitty comments, it’s that fake, “I look like I’m listening but really I’m just waiting to talk!” face that reminds me of a hundred dickish conversations.  That mealymouthed disbelief in anyone who doesn’t understand or isn’t interested in Twitter.  That jaded, comment weary, knows-everything-about-the-goddamn-Internet attitude.  Oh my god, just shut up.  We get it.  Everyone gets it.  You’re cool and you have thoughts that are important and anyone who doesn’t agree is a fucking idiot.  FINE.  You ass.  Me and my transference issues aren’t gonna be friends with you anymore.