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.

Eventually a gigantic gut emerges, the most famous gut being Canada’s, often referred to as the United States. But after Canada’s liposuction, the two were separated and now America keeps eating because Canada thinks she’s too good for it. Not all motivation is hamburger directed, sometimes we want more. Usually it’s about having sex with the muses, nine super hot Greek goddesses that want nothing to do with you. 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.

Your common dream is usually pornography starring you and some celebrity. Actors have never sat right with me. A woman being paid millions of dollars to pretend to sleep with Brad Pit just seems lazy, especially when most people, male or female, would sleep with him for a sandwich and shelter from the bears. Anyone who says that last sentence was gay is totally gay, because if you wouldn’t sleep with Brad Pit then you hated “Fight Club.” If you hated Fight Club that means you have no taste. This can only mean you’re fighting your homosexual urges to have good taste and thus you’re in the closet. If you don’t live in one of those places that sets you on fire for being gay, just come out already, the sooner you make peace with the fact that you’re never going to spoon with me the sooner you can realize you’ll never be happy as a homosexual. 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. Seriously, 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 by a coffee shop 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 even pull out my katar or swing around my +2 battle axe during my match. Why don’t I just tie my penis behind my back! You jerks!

Also, have you ever been to an anime or SCA convention, those guys give sword guys a bad name.

I guess I’ll just have to settle for being a briefcase with my lunch inside guy.

Reaction

I pretend gun guys are sword guys and give them a lot of crap for it. “Oh, look at me, I’m Charlton Heston. I can’t kill someone who’s over 6 feet away! I’ll have to stand up and move over to him if I want’em to die!”

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, Voltaire wrote Candide, and no one else really matters because Voltaire went into the future and made sure no one would out write him through the powers of afternoon talk shows. A better book may exist, but you’ll never find it, because book stores only sell to those blasted housewives now. After reading these three books, I thought I would also try to improve the world. But to my horror, I met Za, 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, Za covered her boobs and walked away. Thus beginning a horror even greater than having my dreams crushed, losing the sight of boobs.

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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. You could use that time to smash large rocks with larger rocks to make rock dust, perfect for 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!

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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 kept trying to get me involved in a timeshare and criticized me relentlessly. The timeshare was for a tree house that charged squirrels rent. Most of my attempts to flee failed, because this troll was faster than me and wouldn’t take no for an answer. Long story short, I have a basement full of nuts…

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 throw a rock at a troll.

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.” Then our hero turns evil and leads an army of aliens attempting 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 to 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 12 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!

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I write poems about Erica Campbell. It is literally impossible to sellout anymore than doing porn, expect growing old. But she’d never do that to me. Not like that Jet Li. Break our hearts will he! Besides, porn movies are really just B-movies, both have horrible acting, but porn cuts further costs by not putting any money into wardrobe and B-movies eventually make the actresses get naked anyway. Also, since her last name is also Campbell, she’s pretty much the same guy, only with boobs instead of a chin.

Crushed Hero: Wolverine

Any kid into Marvel comics before the year 2000 thought Wolverine to be 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 the states. We could have forgiven Wolverine for that, but not for shaving his 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.

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I shave hurtful phrases into the side of cats.

Crushed Childhood Marketing Gimmick: The Wonder Twins

If a hero was ever targeted at children, it was probably Vampirella. But the most misguided attempt was with the Wonder Twins. For some reason they only had powers when they turned them on, which required both of them to be in the same room. As children, we never thought they’d be accused of sharing a bathroom while pooing to ensure their powers could be used should they be ambushed by Lex Luther and the legion of jerks. But the suits in corporationland did and murdered the original Wonder Twins and replaced them with “actors” so said scenario could never occur. Ironically, the original Wonder Twins were actually murdered while one of them was using the bathroom. Meaning the heroes we all kind of tolerated but also hated weren’t even the original Wonder Twins, or twins. Just two waiters pulled off the street and put into the role. WAITERS! What’s next, a Superman bartender?

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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 every time.

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 I was like, anime is 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.