Rant! by Mark Kenner
October 1, 1999
You know what pisses me off? All those idiotic Valtrex commercials that show attractive, popular people with genital herpes holding hands with their lovers, walking on the beach at dawn, frequenting trendy cafés, and just generally having the time of their lives despite the red, itchy bumps on their genitals. Is this what "suppression" is all about? If so, sign me up for a case of genital herpes. I want to be attractive and popular. I want to go for walks on the beach with my hot, itchy girlfriend and hang out at the clubs where the cool, itchy kids do. I want to laugh on itchy tire-swings in the country and go barefoot without embarrassment. I want it all. But it probably isn't gonna happen for me. I have a sneaking suspicion that the fact that the people on those commercials are attractive and popular is why they have genital herpes and I don't.
You know what else pisses me off? The late nineties in general. It's like no one realizes how lame they are anymore. Some girl walked by me the other day wearing khakis, an orange tech vest, and she was singing a Backstreet Boys song. I really, really wanted to hit her, but didn't because I don't want to get suspended again, and I'm tired of talking to Anger Management Counselor Dave Stiveck. Just a few years ago, circa 1993-1996, before The Gap made being a singing clone "cool" and Old Navy made it okay to be a total dork, everybody knew how lame everything was. But now, just a few years later, it's like everybody has suddenly forgotten, and people are listening to crappy pop music and buying $40 t-shirts just for a tag. It's like the nineties are ending just like the eighties did, with the New Kids (er, I mean the Backstreet Boys) on top, bright, tacky looking clothing everywhere you look, unexplainably expensive brand names, and a teen population lamer than their own grandparents. It makes me want to take a piss right in the middle of Old Navy. Indeed I did once, and I didn't even get caught.
I really can't stand evangelistic Christians. I was coming out of the Civic Center the other day, and two of them swooped down on me like smiling, brainless, Jesus-sucking vultures and tried to shove little Jack Chick comic books into my hands. I said, "What are these?" and they were like, "They tell about the truth." I asked, "What truth?" and they said, "God's truth." Needless to say, I took as many pamphlets as they had, because I'm just sick like that and I get a kick out of this Christian bullshit. According to one of the Jack Chick tracts they gave me, fat kids named Bobby who get run over by cars while trick-or-treating go to Hell. That's what I've been saying all along. Also, people who have any kind of pre-marital sex get both gonorrhea and AIDS, and doctors tell teenage girls with STDs that they are going to Hell for acting like sluts. People can also develop full-blown AIDS a mere two weeks after having sex with an infected person. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Christians can eat out of my ass. But don't be sending me tons idiotic emails saying "You hate Christians! You're a biggot! [sic]" Because I don't hate Christians. I love Christians. In fact, if it weren't for Christians, what would I laugh at? In truth, though, it's just the evangelistic ones I have a problem with; the ones who feel they need to convert other people to their childish, illogical mindset in a pathetic attempt justify their own shaky beliefs. I also hate the ones who dress like June Cleaver and make pies for school bake sales. Those are the kind I try to run over with my car.
You know what's really good? Whipper Snapple. I'm talking total mouthgasm here, seriously. Especially the Orange Dream.
Back to Tech Vests, you know what my real problem with them is? Despite the fact that they're ugly and useless and only complete losers wear them, I mean? It's that they weren't popular before Old Navy told us they were popular. Previous fashion trends and hip name brands like Gerbaud and Guess? rarely, if ever, advertised on TV. They just became popular because cool kids [read: attractive kids with money] started to wear them, and then everybody else did. Nowadays, Old Navy and The Gap just manufacture fashion trends from nothing; they come out with something brand new and tell us cool people are wearing it even before they possibly could be. And then all the fucking idiots who want to be cool run out at buy them, while people like me just stock up on empty Whipper Snapple bottles to hurl at those people. I pegged one guy right in the back of the head with a Stawberry Banana. Those things are made out of very heavy glass and they sound like they hurt pretty bad; at least his scream was really loud.
Maybe this is the End Times after all, like the Jesus-rimmers outside the Civic Center were saying. When people start listening to the Backstreet Boys and N'Sync and 98 Degrees and thinking it's music, and wearing Tech Vests and Khakis and thinking they're cool, and buying $40 plain black T-shirts from The Gap, the world just plain deserves to end. Christians, go ahead and give me your rain of fire and boiling ocean and moon of blood, just to wipe all these fucking losers off the map. See ya later, RuPaul and Old Navy Ho-bag With Huge Glasses. Bye-bye, sad singing Gap clones and Sister-Sister. See you in Hell, Abercrombie & Fitch and Tommy Hilfrigger and happy herpes patients. Don't let the door hit you in your red bumpy asses on the way out and you better not fucking take my last Snapple from the fridge when you go.
Mark.
divisiontwo wholeheartedly agrees with the content of this column.
