Archive for the ‘bullies’ Tag
I’m not much of a celebrity lover. I’ve been able to live a great life without knowing about their tattoos, their favorite foods, or when they lost their virginities. I’ve met a few over the years and wasn’t all that impressed because they’re just folks like the rest of us. As I was recently going through a few books I found information about some celebrities that really brought it home just how down-to-earth they really are. As a child I was bullied for two years by a fat neanderthal with an IQ of ten who outweighed me by at least 60 pounds. It made my life miserable for a time until I grew eight inches taller, put on an additional thirty-five pounds, and then got even. I feel for anyone who has been put in that position, including celebrities. Here’s a list of some famous folks and the nicknames they were forced to deal with.
Kate Moss – Mosschops, Kate Winslet – Blubber, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos – Jolly Blond Giant, Victoria Beckham – Acne Face, Geri Halliwell – Pancake (flat chested), Elle Macpherson – Smelly Elly, Jeff Goldblum – Bubwires (braces), Justin Timberlake – Brillo Pad, Robert DiNiro – Bobby Milk, Nicole Kidman – Stalky, Gisele Bundchen – Oli (short for Olive Oyl), Britany Spears – Boo Boo,
Some of the celebrity nicknames were mild and a few others were just plain mean. We’ve all had to deal with nicknames as we grew up. I dealt with the name Crazy Legs for a year or two and then Hazelnut after that. My all-time favorite and longest-lasting nickname was of course, Smart Ass, which seemed to be every one’s favorite. It was last used as recently as yesterday and has over the years become a badge of honor for me.
Roy Howard Kerridge (11/26/1923 – 04/29/2011)
Many times over the years I have offered up quotations from the rich and famous in an attempt to make a point. As you do any type of research on the web you’ll find that many of those type of quotations are repeated over and over again. Some are supposed to be profound and informative, but I always wonder if the quote was actually written by the person its ascribed too. That’s just my cynical side rearing its ugly head for the thousandth time.
In recent years I’ve tried to search out the more obscure authors and philosophers that most people have never heard of. As I was exploring recently, I found a quote concerning prisons and criminal behavior. I was drawn to it immediately because of my Criminal Justice background. I’d never heard of the author but as I soon discovered he had a lot to say about a lot of subjects. They actual appealed to me because the author is known for his eccentric and idiosyncratic writings in many national newspapers and magazines, and of course in his column in the Salisbury Review. The Salisbury Review is a quarterly British magazine since 1982 and reflects conservative thought and ideals. Roy Kerridge was so obscure he received no mention in their Wikipedia entry even though he wrote many articles for them. He was an author who chronicled lost causes and also authored over 30 books on various subjects. Here is his take on the rehabilitation of criminals in a prison system.
“That is the whole beauty of prisons – the benefit is not to the prisoner, of being reformed or rehabilitated, but to the public. Prisons give those outside a resting period from town bullies and horrible characters, and for this we should be very grateful.”
This was his quote from The Lone Conformist in 1984
*****
R.I.P. ROY
What compels almost every group of humans who spend any amount of time together to break into smaller groups based on any number of societal reasons? We have the geeks and jocks, the pretty and not so pretty, the brains and the dummies, the sexually different, and just about anything else you can think of. One of the worst outcomes of group dynamics is bullying. Whether it’s verbal, physical, emotional, or cyber it continues regardless of the steps taken by our society to stop it. The end results of bullying are ugly and include awful things such as suicides, murders, beatings, and a life long emotional issue for the victims to deal with. Nothing good comes of it.
I’ve experienced most of these things first hand growing up. They started for me in Middle school when I was a short and skinny nerd being bullied by a much older and meaner student and his pals. I dealt with it as best I could until a few years later when I grew about a foot and put on forty pounds. Then all of a sudden their nonsense stopped and they moved on to other smaller and less hostile targets.
In High School I had the misfortune to be socially placed into two different groups. On one hand I was a jock who lettered in a number of sports but I was also confined to the weirdo category because of my artistic bent. At sporting events it was OK to be seen with me but all of my jock buddies avoided any type of friendship off the field. I was independent enough to deal with it but how well I did is still up for discussion. If I handled it so well why am I continuing to talk about it after all these years? A good question to be sure but one I really don’t want to answer. I suspect the scars on any bullying victim never go away completely.
I’m only bringing it up now because of what I observed only a day or so ago. I was riding by a local high school and classes were letting out. I observed no less than five or six distinct groups standing on the same sidewalk. They were talking amongst themselves in their own groups but ignoring the others. I could see the obvious differences immediately, sport related jackets in one group, weird clothing and hats in another, musical instruments in a third and as always a small group of sad looking kids who were the obvious outcast group. I was immediately transported back to my early days when I was the guy who walked through the many and varied groups wondering why I wasn’t being accepted. It was a little bit of time travel I could have done without.
I have no answers or solutions and apparently no one else does either. I see on TV the reports of student groups standing up and fighting against bullying. They wear their cute t-shirts and attend their cute meetings and accomplish very little. The people that need to be attending those rallies and listening to the speech’s are the bullies themselves and the school administrators who have the power to discipline them. The bullies watch those activities and laugh them off with a shrug and a smirk. Then it’s business as usual the very next day. It takes much sterner consequences by the powers-that-be on the bully’s before we can expect to see any improvement. Our politically correct school systems make that damn near impossible. Drastic problems require drastic action and doing nothing at all is cowardly and unforgiveable.
Do you ever use sarcasm as a means to quiet people who irritate you? Have you ever been accused of being a lesser person because your sarcastic? Do people that don’t understand sarcasm cause you to step back a bit and begin to wonder what it was early in their life that they missed? If you said yes to any of these questions then you are probably an honest-to-God quick witted and funny person like me.
It’s time for those of us blessed with superior sarcasm skills to stand up with our heads held high and proclaim to the world "I’m sarcastic, your not, life sucks so deal with it.” Jealousy is a terrible thing and if I remember correctly it is one of the Seven Deadly Sins and not something to be all that proud of.
I’ve often been accused of being “a sarcastic SOB” and I’ve put up with the ignorant and sometime condescending comments for years. I’ll no longer tolerate that kind of treatment by anyone ever again. No more Mr. Nice Guy, "I’m sarcastic, it isn’t going to change, so either get over it or stay the hell away from me.”
I began developing my sarcasm superpower at age ten when I discovered that I could deflect parents, adults, and bullies with sarcasm which in turn kept me from being beaten, spanked, and bothered. It didn’t always work but I decided I needed to develop the skill further because it had real potential.
In junior high school I tried to get along with my first and only bully. Unfortunately I was a bit of a runt which allowed the bully to think I was stupid, weak, and non threatening. As we all know most bullies love to target someone who is weak or appears to be weak for constant ridicule and physical intimidation. My bully was three years older than me, had been left back a couple of times, out weighed me by forty pounds, and fortunately for me was as dumb as a bag of rocks.
I remember clearly the first time I used sarcasm on him. When I told him sarcastically, “You must think your the biggest, badest, and smartest SOB in this effing school?”. He appeared to be flattered and just couldn’t stop grinning and swaggering around the school yard. He actually thought I complimented him which instantly transformed me into a possible candidate to join his entourage of morons and suck ups. I declined membership and after two years of being kicked around and having my possessions stolen, I was finally free to enjoy the rest of Junior High and High School without that asshole causing me further difficulties.
I decided then and there that using wit, sarcasm, and glib remarks was a valuable tool and became determined to refine it and become “All I could be”. If used properly along with smiles and clever conversation it can also get you laid every so often which was a accidental and pleasant discovery. That in itself justified all of the time and effort I put into becoming a virtual “sarcasm machine”.
As always when I write about things I try to research the meanings of the words I’m using. The alleged intellectuals responsible for compiling dictionaries and encyclopedias describe sarcasm very clinically and for the most part in a negative fashion:
In sarcasm, ridicule or mockery is used harshly, often crudely and contemptuously, for destructive purposes. It may be used in an indirect manner, and have the form of irony, as in "What a fine musician you turned out to be!" or it may be used in the form of a direct statement, "You couldn’t play one piece correctly if you had two assistants." The distinctive quality of sarcasm is present in the spoken word and manifested chiefly by vocal intonation . . .
Hostile, critical comments may be expressed in an ironic way, such as saying "don’t work too hard" to a lazy worker. The use of irony introduces an element of humour which may make the criticism seem more polite and less aggressive. Sarcasm can frequently be unnoticed in print form, oftentimes requiring the intonation or tone of voice to indicate the quip.
Viewing sarcasm as a negative really doesn’t get to the truth of it. There are some people, highly intelligent and educated, who just don’t get sarcasm. I try not to be disrespectful during those occasional conversations with them because I never want to be perceived as mean or rude. I like a lot of laughter in my life and when the people around me don’t bring anything to the table then it’s up to me to create some and I do, sometimes at their expense.
SO TO ALL OF YOU OUT THERE, HAVE A WONDERFUL AND GLORIOUS DAY (Sarcasm Off)
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