Motivation is pretty much the only reason anyone does anything. I’m motivated to eat, so I eat 5 hamburgers. I’m not loved enough, so I eat 5 more hamburgers. I’m ashamed of how I feel and look after eating 10 hamburgers, so I eat 5 more hamburgers.

Not all motivation is hamburger directed, sometimes we want more than stuffing our faces. That more is usually sex and it basically fuels just about everything we do (even the lack thereof i.e. Magic the Gathering). You can tell a lot about people’s sexual motivations from their careers. Military types want to have sex with foreigners in the tattered remains of civilization. They really enjoy the feel of rubble on their naked body. A plumber wants to do it in the bathroom. Actors just want to “pretend” to have sex. That’s right ladies, some of the most important women in the world would rather fake an orgasm. In fact, some women have been paid millions to fake it with Brad Pitt.

But one category of people wants to have the greatest sex of all, artists. We aren’t satisfied with “mortal” women, we need muses. Divine inspiration that thinks were so talented they give us sexy-times and really good ideas for screen plays to work with. Some people might say it’s suspect that writers are the ones claiming they have sex with NINE super awesome goddesses at once. But the story has such a well developed narrative flow, how couldn’t it be true?

Oddly enough, the standards for muses in real life drops considerably to whoever is willing to have sex with a writer and that generally depends on how well-known the writer is. Which creates the paradox of the muse, how do you get inspiration from sexy ladies if they’ll only give it when you’ve already demonstrated how inspired you are? So we write in our parent’s basements and wait tables, evaluating our worth by the views of third parties. Naturally, if 100 million people pay to go to our movie at least two muses will be willing to sleep with you. But occasionally, something else inspires us. Tells us to write, film, act, or murder people and use their corpses as puppets. For example, our crushed dreams.

Many men have had their dreams of being loved by me crushed because I think men are gross looking. It’s like a coming of manhood, all homosexuals must have their dream of being loved by me crushed and start up an emo rock band. Don’t believe me? Emo rock become popular shortly after I exited the worst part of my puberty, coincidence? I think not.

The next few years are going to suck

But not everyone decides making crappy music is their calling when their dreams have been shattered. I’m not content with merely walking on paths of tears and bed sheets that have never seen two naked bodies. I’ll share with you how I’ve used my pains to continue being better than you.

Crushed Illusion: The Katana

I’m totally a sword guy. A lot of people are gun guys, because guns go boom and people die. I’m not a big fan of loud noises and guns get all gross when you’re cleaning them. You have to use bacon grease to keep the gears moving and you have to jam this long metal rod down the barrel to pack in the gunpowder, which is far too Freudian. Also, it isn’t very satisfying killing a dragon with a sniper rifle. The dragon just scratches the area the bullet went and goes about its business of setting you on fire. Have you ever been on fire? It totally sucks. It’s like that burning feeling people get when they pee, only all over their body.

This is why I’m a sword guy, I hate being on fire! Then I went to a Kendo tournament. First off, they don’t even let you use real swords. They make you fight with sticks. Am I a caveman? No, I was forced out my cave by a coffee chain trying to expand into the woods. Apparently bears need caffeine more than I need shelter. So I have no need for a club!

Secondly, I couldn’t use my katar or swing around my +2 battle axe during my match. Why don’t I just tie my penis between my legs and call myself a girl? Because I might as well be if I don’t swing it at everything possible!

Also, have you ever been to an anime or SCA convention, an overweight man with fairy wings and a sword does not inspire confidence in swordplay.

Reaction

I give gun guys a lot of crap. “Oh, look at me, I’m Charlton Heston. I’m too lazy to put down my booze and get up to kill a guy. He’s over 6 feet away!

Waaaahhhhh! I accidently shot my wife in the face because she was standing over 40 feet behind my target.

Crushed Dream: Utopias

Every now and then, someone says the world could be better and takes the first and only step towards making it so, writing a book about an utopian society. Skinner wrote Walden Two, Plato wrote the Republic, Thoreau wrote Walden. Walden serves as a standard, but no one reads it because it takes what could be said in 30 pages and makes it intensely boring by stretching it out to hundreds. Seriously, he’ll take three pages to write, “Oh, I found an easier way to bake bread.” But to my horror, I met Elizabeth, a female with the power of boobs. She used her boobs to force me to read the anti-utopian novels: 1984, Brave New World, We, and Culture Warrior. Having lost the hope of ever seeing more than two humans treating other people with respect, Elizabeth covered her boobs and walked away. Thus beginning a horror even greater than having my dreams crushed, losing the sight of boobs.

Reaction

Now I’m obsessed with drawing pictures of women with werewolves for boobs nursing Hitler. That little mustache he always sported, just werewolf milk.

Crushed Ideal: Communism

The concept of sharing resources instead of fighting for them is pretty awesome. Imagine how much you can do if you don’t throw rocks at people all day? You could use that time to make pies! Everyone loves pie! But no, communists are nothing like that. They’re all a bunch of pie hoarders. One time I went to a communist rally and I was the only one to bring pie. They didn’t even bring chips or soda, everyone was like, “Hey, I brought cups. Now give me some pie.” But I can’t drink a cup and I was thirsty from the pie! Assholes!

Reaction

I draw amusing faces on pies made from people.

Crushed Dream: Love… or at least sex.

After I spent several years wooing a lovely woman I thought maybe, just maybe, I was in love with her. By maybe, I mean I said things like, “I love you, so you should put on cat ears and get naked.” Eventually she agreed, but when she pulled off her clothes, it turned out she was really Bigfoot! I totally didn’t get to have sex that night, because as soon as you see Bigfoot, Bigfoot runs off into the mist and gets really blurry. I should have known, she always carried around a box of dry ice. I tried to chase after her, but that blurry image always turns out it to be a tree or a troll. For me, it was a troll. Like every other troll, it just made insulting comments about me and my attempts at having sex. “Sex is for newbies! Real men post comments!”

Reaction

The rich tradition of troll murder and sexism that is professional wrestling. Something about a man in a speedo just makes you lose respect women and hit a trash talking dude with a chair.

Another aspect of inspiration comes from our fallen idols. The heroes in our life are really just images from our waking dreams. They make us think, “Hey, maybe life doesn’t suck. Maybe I don’t need to suck!” Then our hero turns evil and leads an army of aliens to conquer earth and we have to find a way to melt our ex-hero who seems to be made of a hard, metal-like substance.

Crushed Cult Idol: Bruce Campbell

Some actors are notorious for not being famous. Bruce Campbell was one of them. It didn’t matter if he had a cult following of millions if those millions don’t know him well enough to follow him around the supermarket, watching him squeeze grapes. I’m not sure why Bruce was squeezing those grapes, it was kind of weird. I tried to sell the story to this very credible newspaper, but they said Bruce Campbell didn’t appeal to enough women. Then one day he tried to charge me 14 dollars to see his B-movie. What the hell? It’s a B-movie! You don’t charge more money for a movie because it doesn’t have a huge budget! You charge less money, because it costs less to make!

Reaction

I make John Campbell themed comics and give them to depressed people. They have similar names, so he’s just about as good. Only John Campbell makes depressing pictures for depressed children shortly before they’re mysteriously murdered.

Crushed Hero: Wolverine

Any kid into comics before the year 2000 thought Wolverine was pretty awesome. He was like a Wookie ninja. A hairy guy that screamed and killed things with knifes from his hands! He probably started the whole anime convention thing here in America because Halloween wasn’t enough time to dress up like Wolverine. We could have forgiven Wolverine for that, but not for shaving his body hair. If you’ll look at the “current” Wolverine, you notice nothing wookieish about him. Metrosexuals, is there anything manly you won’t cover in antiseptic?

Left: Wolverine from the old comics without his mask.
Right: Wolverine from a bad movie.

Reaction

I shave hurtful phrases into the side of cats.

Crushed Childhood Hero and Hopes: Spider-Man

If a hero was ever meant to inspire children, it was probably Vampirella. Look at how many vampire hungry lady-teens there are today? But the most misguided attempt has to be Spider-Man. His real-world problems are constantly interfering with his super hero life. He can’t afford to pay for both his rent and his web shooters, he doesn’t have time to have sex with super hot ladies and fight crime, and his relatives are pissed at both him and his alter ego. Wow, able to disappoint your parents as two different people? Amazing.

This is the future these childhood comics were preparing for me, an endless string of Sophie’s choice. If Spider-Man is constantly complaining about and failing to overcome challenges despite being one of the most well-connected superheroes in the world, with super powers, and a genius intellect, what hope do I have?

Reaction

I make drunken phone calls to the Super Friends hotline. Often trying to get them to rush out to aid Amanda Hugankiss, Robin falls for it a lot.

Crushed Medium: Anime

My first exposure to Anime left me wide eyed and in awe. Ambitious projects like Dragonballz and Cowboy Bebop were nothing but giant bundles of awesome forced down your eyeballs. Then I saw FLCL and thought anime was the best.

It turned out anime was like any other medium, a few gems in a sea of crap. Getting a distilled look at the gems before I was forced to wade through the filth to find something else was quite the reality check. Furthermore, what’s the deal with angry high school males being surrounded by hot women and the one with the largest breasts also happens to have a secret crush on him? Seriously? What are these guys so angry about, get over your stupid flashback and just move on with your life.

Reaction

Finger puppet theater. The tamest sex scenes and violence that’s awkward at best. About as far from anime as you can get.