Friday, March 11, 2011

MAKE THE INAPPROPRIATE APPROPRIATE

I am thirty six years old, the mother of five, and so all by all rights and social norms, I should no longer be listening to the Jerky Boys and laughing myself into frenzy. But I do it any way, because among other things, there is a lot wrong with me. I could begin to list alphabetically the issues from which I suffer but I think that would be far too time consuming really and readers would likely fall into a deep coma. This is not my intention so you will just have trust me that I am not right.


Any way, my favorite Jerky boy track is one called the gay model, in which one of the Jerky boys calls up a modeling agency to tell about his act. "I have other tricks and trinkets", he says. "First, I soak myself in lamp oil, then I burn myself in front of the crowd. The crowd seems to love this."

The woman on the other end of the line says, "I don't know if that would be appropriate", hesistantly.

And the Jerky boy answers resoundingly, "Oh, it's APPROPRIATE."

Today's suggestion for surviving the shitty is two fold really. First and foremost, listen to the Jerky boys, because they are funny as hell and they will cheer you up in spite of yourself. If you have never heard of them before, they are a bunch of guys who made prank phone calls and taped them, and then went to jail for doing so. There work is on itunes. I suggest downloading instantly if you are feeling blue.
My second suggestion is to do exactly as the Jerky boys did, which is to take the inappropriate and make it appropriate. It doesn't really matter how you do it. Just take anything that you have ever thought about doing, but didn't because you didn't think it was appropriate, and do it any way. Ala the people in Jackass, or Ashton Kutcher in punked. You don't have to be a celebrity to act like a jackass; it feels great even if you are a regular person.

Case in point. My friend Courtney and I went out this summer to a local bar scene dressed in Jean shorts, naughty by nature t-shirts that had names on the back, and Ugg boots The t-shirts belonged to my oldest daughter and her friend, and they were originally made as team shirts for a game they played on a team together called J ball. The back of one read Eileen Eulick, the other said, Alpha Kenny Wun. We wore entirely too much make up and put our hair in pig tails. It was an embarrassment and an abomination, but boy oh boy was it fun, and really in the end we didn't hurt anyone. Sure we may have acted like idiots. We may have dressed somewhat disgracefully. We may have kissed on the lips when a crowd encouraged us to do so, and the police promised that they wouldn't arrest the "twins", but you know, you only live once, and so live you should.

Sometimes life really, really just sucks. There will be days when your kid doesn't make a team that he had his heart set on making and there will be nothing to do about it. There may come a time when you get diagnosed with some horrific disease, or you may live in area hit by a natural disaster. You may have a stranger show up at your door one day to tell you that his wife is having an affair with your husband. One day you will be at a funeral for someone you love, and one day you will be at your own. In light of all of this, I encourage you to reevaluate that which you think is inappropriate, and to find laughter where you can, when you can, because honest to God life is too short, and when it starts feeling like its too long, you need to readjust your strategy.


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