Hi, kids!

Well, enough small talk.  As some of you may know, I’ll be, with a bit of luck and proper flying, shambling into Australia for two appearances at their Supanova conventions.

They are as follows:

• Melbourne (March 28 & 29)

• Brisbane (April 4 & 5)

According to the website info I’m there each day for 8 hours a day, but considering I’ve never been any particular place for 8 hours nonstop in my entire life I’m hoping that’s just a horrible misprint.  If it’s not, I’m bringing molotov cocktails to fling into the crowd as I flee for the occasional break from whatever the hell a person does for 8 hours at a convention.

Anyhow, I’m as excited about visiting Australia-land about as much as I am equally terrified of the insane amount of time it will take rocketing through the sky in an explosive can to get there.  Beyond that, short of being devoured by crocodiles in my hotel room or realizing I’ve been suckered into a furry convention instead, there’s only one thing that might put a damper on my grand adventure down under:  QUESTION AND ANSWER PANELS.

Now, in the past, I’ve stumbled into these things unprepared, happy to explore the user generated content of the mind that attendees have felt fit to provide for conversational fodder.  Clearly, a creator is directly responsible for the response and analysis of their work that goes on in the heads of their audience, and so, going by that supposition, only one thing can be deduced:  I am a horrible person and have engendered nightmares beyond forgiveness.

Armed with this knowledge, we here at ME are taking this opportunity to prepare for the upcoming Australian appearance which appears to be very panel discussion-heavy.

Here’s your chance to send in questions for the remarkable, garbage-powered simulation of me that I’ll be sending to Australia to spread my simulated cheer as an ambassador of whatever it is I represent.  If you’ve ever attended one of these things you’ll know they range from boring to outright awful, with a good deal comprised of watching someone awkwardly step up to a microphone and then ask something that maybe makes sense to their giggling little social circle but means absolutely nothing to the other 99 percent of people in the room.

This time we’ll try something a bit different, going in with a list of questions gathered from the globe and not just the lucky Australians I’ll be confronted with there…in Australia.  This allows for a much more streamlined experience, comparable to the professionally designed Little Big Planet levels as opposed to the myriad of horrible, fan generated Sonic levels where your sack boy gets trapped behind a crude representation of Dr. Robotnik.  This way applause can be controlled, laughter surgically inserted, thrown rotting vegetables and fruit impeccably timed.  Utopian, no?

Now, before you just send questions in willy and/or also “nilly”, ye should be equipped with the power to better gauge the value of your, no doubt, awesome queries.  Discussing this with several other people who have been at the mercy of the interrogative mob, a step by step process was devised to allow you to distill the shining fruits of your thinking process down to it’s purest final form.  The process goes something…a’like THIS:

(These steps would really only help with some of the people that have made previous Q and A panels so unique.  They might not apply in your case.)

1.  You’ve just been made aware that there is a very good chance that an answer may very well be provided for whatever question it is you have to ask of a particular person known more for drifting obliviously in space than for ever answering a damned thing.  That you comprehend this much is good, and is a sign that your perception skills put you in a minority category already.  Move on to step #2.

2.  This is it!  The question is bubbling up  like gas bubbles released from a newly exploded underwater corpse weighted down by the gold bricks that were once the answer to all its problems but turned out to be the key only to a watery grave.  When you see an empty comment field on a web post your heart races to enter anything and everything, regardless of how off-topic it is.  If you’re incredibly lucky and no one has commented yet, you furiously type in “FIRST”, hit enter, and walk away satisfied with a job well done.  Then you walk back because where else are you going to go, right?  Right.

Encapsulated in this rising stench of bubbles is something along the lines of “What kind of piggies are your favorite?” or “Do you like cheese?”.  Less common, but hardly uncommon, are things that aren’t even questions, such as the urge to hold up some home-made ragdoll while smiling and saying “He’s my friend, I think.”  This is good.  This is normal.  Let these bubbles dissipate or absorb them back into yourself for later use when you really do want to get shot in the throat.  You’re doing great.  Now, on to stage #3!

3.  You’re an experienced type.  You know the drill thus far, and you’re on top of your shit.  You’re well aware of the kind of questions that the answerer is used to getting so, get this magic:  INTENTIONALLY ask something you know will get eyes rolling!  Do it!  How awesome and ironic would that be?  I’m with you, man and or manly woman, and it’s undeniably impeccable the logic. Remember that episode of Father Ted where Dougal goads Ted into approaching Richard Wilson and saying “I don’t believe it!” to a man who spent the last few years delivering that line on a sitcom, inciting a brutal assault on Ted as a response?  Well, I’m a pretty scrawny guy and lack the power of an enraged, elderly actor, but I’ve got plenty of really scary fans that’d pretty much do whatever I say and if I grabbed a light saber from a passing jedi, placed it in the hands of the slobbering goon in waiting and said “RAPE, my young padewan!” I’m sure they’d be happy to oblige.   That shit’d definitely end up on Youtube and for once it’d be something I’d watch.

Technically here, Ted’s action took place in stage 2, but the general idea is there.  If you’re going for irony, chances are the laugh track on that one died years ago and you’re simply acting out a timeless event that’s been put on repeat.  Sure, SOMEONE has to fill that role, as someone always has to be the guy that throws the joke out there that makes everyone groan, but stop to think if you really want to be that person.  On to step #4!

4.  You’re almost there.  You’re doing excellent, BUT…there’s a nagging itch.  Something’s not quite right and, wait…oh, no.  You’re not.  You are?  Oh, no…oh, shit.  You really are!  you’re considering going for LEVEL 2 IRONIES!  A respectful nod and a touch of awe to you, my daring, hideous friend who is really a total and complete stranger.

Well, generally the reasoning here is that you’re going BEYOND the typical realms of comedy, that you exist on the fringe of known humor and thus the rest of the world will have to catch up to your craaazy antics.  After all, you’re going two levels past what common sense would dictate, you mad thing you!  To act upon this would be the panel discussion equivalent of those big awful 80’s sunglasses that 15 year old hipsters wear being totally aware of how funny it is, and then really throwing on every other single thing to undo the idea of it being a joke so much as part of just another hideous, 80’s style outfit instead of trying anything original. Kids these days, by cracky!   The laugh track at this point doesn’t even kick in.  The guy in the audio booth is just dust and a pile of rotting clothes, his potential children merely flakes mixed in with the crust of what was once his scrotum.

Another popular aspect of LEVEL 2 IRONIES (spoken in Mortal Kombat announcer voice)  is that, hopefully, they’ll get ya a bit of attention, no matter what the tone of that attention is.  Should you be attracted to L2I, then you don’t give a shit whether or not the person you devote way too much time to is patting you on the back, vomiting on you, or vowing to murder each and every one of your loved ones so long as you can brag about getting any kind of return on your vile commentary investment.  This earns you a lot of points, but only with fellow winners who place a little higher than themselves for having “made contact”, broken the barrier between the lurking beasts and the deity you have created in your terrifyingly sad mind.  NEAT!

The idea there is that you’ve left your mark on a complete stranger who might not have given you the time of day otherwise, and when your life has no other goals, well, there you have given yourself something to brag about, yeah?  Thing is, I can’t actually remember the last time anyone ever pissed me off or left me with more of a bemused thought before moving on to the rest of my delicious sandwich.  Granted, I know plenty of other people who do tend to get a bit more involved when someone says or does something to provoke a response because they live vicariously through the actions of others, but not only isn’t that smart thinking, it’s just a huge waste of preciou, diabolical life.

A few years back I was walking around at at the San Diego Comicon and someone came up to me to point out that something I had done in a recent book was a total ripoff of something in someone’s novel.  The lil guy wasn’t asking if I had read the book in question or anything so much as simply told me that what he suspected was pretty much fact.  I smiled and told him I’d not read the book but that it was funny how people just come upon the same ideas or little gags when completely separate from one another and moved on…TO MY DELICIOUS SANDWICH.

A short while later, I’m sent a link to some message board by my hateful friends who think finding awful things about me is adorable.  I’m always a bit panicky that it’s going to be  pictures of me with the farm animals I made friends with a few years back, but it usually just ends up being some of the usual discussion stuff, and there was the guy recounting the story of how he totally confronted me about how I ripped this thing off from someone’s book and I how he tooootally caught me.  The “me” in this story was a just an outright guilty bastard.

Now, though I recall that story, and it does make for some pretty fun story stuff, it does nothing for me, as my sammich time makes abundantly clear.  It’s not like I am winded when this stuff happens, sucker punched into humility by some Machiavellian badass who finally put me in my place.  I have no clue who these people are and it’s just silly to care beyond wondering if they had anticipated that very moment, building it up into some grand showdown.  Now, if my DAD read something of mine, threw it to the ground, whipped out his dad-cock and pissed all over while calling me a fuckin’ hack, well… I’d be pretty freaked out and the whole scene might stick with me for a while.  Some weird dude that I don’t know from the people selling rubbery hot dogs in the food court, managing to be both nervous and smug on a comic convention floor?  Sammich, please.  But, then again, it’s not for me so much as the the lil’ peepsies they’ll no doubt regale back on their internet hovels, so to each their own, I suppose.

5.  So you’ve made it this far, eh?  Let it out.  Ask the thing you have settled on!  It’s just that easy!  Who says a simple question has to be so complicated?

So number four was pretty long, huh?  I hope it was at least amusing, if not terribly useful.  And really, how useful is a thing like this when, very likely, it will only inspire people do a whole lot more of the same anyhow.  E. Gauger read this, laughed, and then said that the people this would be intended for aren’t the types who would pay attention.  After punching her in the neck, I pretty much agreed, and made it ten times longer than I had intended to at least have a bit of fun with the whole thing.  Really, I’m sure most of you guys are about as nice as the perfectly pleasant jerks I usually meet at these things, which is actually pretty damned pleasant.  So far my encounter with New York convention goers tops the list of really decent people who didn’t horrify the shit out of me, so I’ve got high hopes for Australia (the New York of the WORLD).

It’s just that I know a lot of you are afraid to raise your hands in class because you think you’ll be seen as one of “those people”, but it’s a silly fear to have.  Why be afraid of being one of those people if you aren’t really one of those people?  Don’t let the screaming, giggling goblins hog the spotlight.  Do your part to combat the perception that the only people that dare make any noise around me are precisely the kind of people that everyone wants to avoid.  Ask away, you awful monsters.  The worst thing that can happen is that your question doesn’t get answered and you don’t get ridiculed by your peers in front of the 5 people that will show up to this thing.

You can start by sending an email to Mr. Scolex. Mailing from the link here adds the subject “Q and or A” to the message automatically. If you decide to wait and not use this particular link remember to add that subject to your message, otherwise it might very well get lost in the mess that is my usual inbox.

Until the future…

Love, DAD.

P.S: I tend to hear a lot of rumors about myself from people who SWEAR they heard it from a friend who knows a friend who once went to school with me or worked with me at a pizza place or saw me doing coke off a dead whore’s ass at so and so’s. Go ahead and send whatever things you have heard about me so I can find out more about the version of myself that lurks in people’s imaginations. I probably won’t clear things up but I’d love to establish a few of those as being more true than others. Example: I really did hear from someone that spoke to a bouncer at a club that swears I was kicked out of his club for doing coke in their restroom and throwing a fit. The truth is even more hardcore as I don’t snort anything other than Lick-M-Aid through hollowed out infant phalanges.