The Benefits of Being an Asshole

Is it just me, or does it seem that if there’s a character in a movie who’s consistently nice, you might start to suspect their motives, or begin to wonder if they’re a kiss-ass at heart, but when the archetypal mean ol’ bastard shows an iota of tenderness, it can move you to tears? For instance, the Grinch is a cold-blooded fucker, cruel behavior spewing from a heart two times too small, but how we love him instantly and unconditionally when he is suddenly good!

And what about the belief that if you ask for forgiveness before reaching the pearly gates, the angel in charge of vetting sinners from saints will not list the number of times you failed to check your sources before posting the type of garbage that cleaves relationships, destroys Thanksgivings, and acts like kerosene to a country’s blazing addiction to moral panic, and so the angel in charge of Afterlife Placement will not send you to purgatory, or to the place where you’re forced to do handstands in a steaming lake of hot, liquid shit while a devil with defined pecs flicks his leather whip, but to the 75 degree weather of heaven, where you will float around on a cloud and reunite with people who never liked you but have to deal with you since you asked for forgiveness, alongside Jeffrey Dahmer, who also asked for forgiveness, and where things are so copacetic that no one ever brings up the irony of the growing pile of unbaptized, heathen babies?

And how about the fact that in this country, you can be the president and such a pulsing sphincter that people are moved to jab into their dead lawns campaign signs that say Fuck Your Feelings and fly flags that reimagine a jowly old man with skin like a circus peanut as Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo, gripping a bazooka with shredded arms, inspiring nervous laughter in anyone who understands this doesn’t come from a place of inanity, but deadly seriousness?

I can remember the moment when I realized photos of skeletal dogs could move people with little money to donate what little money they had, or compel them to do sacrificial things, like sell plasma or stay up late knitting scarves in order to help send north a bunch of watery-eyed puppies on The Kill List, to the safety of a rescue based out of some generous person’s home, like my friend’s father who was a dedicated lover of all furry things, who would never shut up about how mistreated animals are beyond fault for their behavior, that science shows their aggression or withdrawal is strictly circumstantial, how a warm home and gentle guidance can shape them into loving pets - and oh, how they deserve this! - but then, in the same breath, eviscerate a bleary-eyed panhandler to a minivan’s backseat tittering with children, lecturing their young hearts about lack of character, the sin of sloth, the blight of handouts, modeling equal doses of self-righteousness and disgust, glossing over the fact that a sharp-boned stranger is the human equivalent to the dog chained to the fence, underfed and unloved, and what a miracle it is that their mother, who is sitting in the passenger seat and scowling at a man succumbing to lack of food and frigid weather, recently donated $100 of hard-earned money so that two puppies with parvo could be given IVs, making her a goddamn saint.

I was still a kid when I realized most good songs are about conniving cheats, absent fathers, dead horses, elusive pussy, bathtub gin, dank weed, and fist fights, taking careful note that there were no songs about sharing a pencil or picking up dog shit, no songs about resisting road rage or refusing vicious gossip, so what I am saying is that there is no solid argument for being a good person, so go ahead and say the spiteful thing, embrace that inner bitch gaggin’ to create drama, but don’t forget to ask the sky for forgiveness for behaviors you have no intent to change, and if you’d like to move an audience to tears, include in your lifelong commitment to dickishness a fleeting moment of humanity, then kick back and watch your callousness be replaced with the legacy of how you stopped being a motherfucker for 10 seconds in order to bless us with basic decency.