u/Def_Not_Hugh

The Cavity Creeps. We all know and love them. For decades people have dressed as them for Halloween, worn apparel bearing their resemblance, thrown themed parties and weddings based upon them, and who among us doesn't break out a "we make holes in teeth!" chant at social events?

But what are the Cavity Creeps motivation? Making holes in teeth sounds pretty rad...but it is very unclear why they would even attack Toothopolis (if that's even a real place.) Their hatred of the crestopians or whatever their name is seems irrational. Making holes in teeth doesn't provide spoils of any sort, put food on the table, or make any money.

Unless....

The Cavity Creeps do not have a lustin' for crustin' teeth. They do not exist solely to create cavities. No, that's just what BIG TOOTHPASTE wants you to think. Crest wants to shove our mouths full of their minty splooge through any means possible, including deception. Profit is their only motive. Here we were as children, believing we were keeping ourselves safe from the Cavity Creeps, only to learn the real enemy is the one who has been exploiting our fears all along.

Damn you crest. Damn you corporate America. You took my idols and turned them against me.

The Cavity Creeps. We all know and love them. For decades people have dressed as them for Halloween, worn apparel bearing their resemblance, thrown themed parties and weddings based upon them, and who among us doesn't break out a "we make holes in teeth!" chant at social events?

But what are the Cavity Creeps motivation? Making holes in teeth sounds pretty rad...but it is very unclear why they would even attack Toothopolis (if that's even a real place.) Their hatred of the crestopians or whatever their name is seems irrational. Making holes in teeth doesn't provide spoils of any sort, put food on the table, or make any money.

Unless....

The Cavity Creeps do not have a lustin' for crustin' teeth. They do not exist solely to create cavities. No, that's just what BIG TOOTHPASTE wants you to think. Crest wants to shove our mouths full of their minty splooge through any means possible, including deception. Profit is their only motive. Here we were as children, believing we were keeping ourselves safe from the Cavity Creeps, only to learn the real enemy is the one who has been exploiting our fears all along.

Damn you crest. Damn you corporate America. You took my idols and turned them against me.

Jimmy the stock boy. We all know him. We all hate him. But why? His role seems minor in Home Alone until you really thinking about it.

Jimmy has been the villain of this film the entire time.

Plenty has been written (including by me) about how awful the McCallisters are. They call Kevin a wet fart disease, socially isolate him, abandon him as they go on vacation, pay him no mind when they get back, and run the same shit again in the second movie after his mother coldly proclaims "you got your wish last year maybe you will again this year."

Ho-ly shit.

Anyway, other people claim the Wet Bandits are the villains and I get this. They try to break in, murder Kevin, try bite his little pigglies wiggles off, boil his cajones in mortar oil, etc. Pretty villainous indeed.

However...honestly...the Wet Bandits are child's play. They are toys in Kevin's hands. They are to be mocked and played with for our entertainment. Harry is the most savvy of the two but clearly he's dense and been traumatized by life and the penal system. Marv is questionably functional as an independent adult and clearly suffers from a developmental disability or traumatic brain injury (which the movie doesn't help). I honestly think he's manipulated by Harry and probably needs an aide or to live in a home.

Anyway, there's a true villain who has been lurking deeper, right in front of our eyes the entire time.

Fucking Jimmy.

What is this movie really about? A child who feels powerless and voiceless in a large family. He gets his moment through pretending to shoot the pizza man and torturing the wet bandits with Saw-styled traps. Typical American boy stuff.

Jimmy is the anthesis of Kevin. This is clear right away. Kevin is socially awkward. He compensates with humor. He speaks in movie troupes. He befriends old men, has no control over his family life, and is kind of a little weirdo, if we're being honest.

Jimmy meanwhile, is tall, proud, and all-American looking. He holds a job in this small town and is clearly respected by the owner's of the store who call him to solve their problem without hesitation. He appears healthy and well taken care of, which speaks to his family in ways we cannot speak to Kevin's.

Jimmy is only a few years older than Kevin but he's healthy. He's respected. He has a place in society.

All things Kevin's family denies him. Jimmy is the representation of what Kevin can never be or have. And this is apparent in Jimmy's behavior.

Kevin bucks the system. He resists authority. Jimmy takes his orders from the system without question. He's told to harass a scared child who is stumbling away with a fucking toothbrush and he quickly engages because that's how he's built.

Jimmy would volunteer for ICE, no doubt. Probably already has.

Anyway, the narc bastard doesn't even have the courage to chase Kevin down and give him an old-fashioned American beating. Instead, he abdicates his "responsibility" by interrupting a cop in the middle of his actual fucking job and yelling "shop lifter!"

Jimmy just put Kevin's life in danger over a fucking toothbrush. There's a 40 percent chance that cop beats the living hell out of Kevin or shoots him because he mistakes the toothbrush for a gun. The cop is pulled from his actual duty and then proceeds to cause hell for the ice-skating public, clearly causing numerous injuries as he chases Kevin.

All for what?

For Jimmy to serve the system like the little suck-up that he is? For him to socially identify with "the man" and "authority" and use that modicum of power to enforce himself as superior to Kevin?

Sickening.

Kids like you are the problem, Jimmy. Kevin's just a lonely neglected boy who gets a little autistic about his toothbrushes. Who among us hasn't been there?

Jimmy, you may cheer when authority oppresses others, but at the end of the day, when there is no one left.....they will come from you too.

Full disclosure: I am an unapologetic Ness main. So yeah, I am biased towards him but also....

I'm not dense. This is a child who recreationally shoots himself in the ass with lightning, sets things on fire, squeals the same weirdo sounds over and over, and is joyfully used by gamers (sometimes adults) by spamming the same moves over and over and over and over and over while they pretend it is skillful.

What is wrong with all of them?

This milquetoast socially inept child derives power and pleasure only through torturing others with his tactics. What kind of dick head hits someone with a yo-yo? Seriously. Who keeps yelling about fire and thunder and attacking stranger's shins with baseball bats?

And what kind of misanthrope would willing CHOOSE this character to represent them, their competitive spirit, and their overall value as a human being?

Maybe Ness (rightfully) hates himself. That little fucking dweeb. And maybe, me and the others who have convinced ourselves that our play and tactics are "skillful" and "fun" are just leaning into the weakest aspects of our psyche.

Maybe we're all the lame ineffectual little boy who is a one trick pony. Maybe no matter how many PK fires we spam, our fathers still will not love us.

Maybe we have to let go of our endless pursuit of control and recognize that maybe, just maybe, we've been wrong the whole time and healing comes on the other side of growth.

Or maybe Ness is the fucking shit and I'm going to keep spamming you all day jerk wads! PK THUNDAAAAA!

When people ask me what it was like growing up in the nineties I respond, "the Wild West" even though it wasn't that wild and I was raised in the northeast.

My point is, you'd go out on a summer day and your parents would say, "see you at dinner...or never again." They understood those were the two possible outcomes and were at peace with either one. It was you, the whims of adventure, and the open road.

I'd start my summer days by putting on my Moon Shoes and Skip-It to get in a little joint training session. I'd throw on my Sock-em Boppers (more fun than a pillow fight!) and punch the air a few times, training in case any Cavity Creeps came my way throughout the day. I'd skip/bounce over to my supplies and get two packs of Zebra Stripe Gum to tide me over for the next six minutes or so. Then I'd load my Jurassic Park backpack with the essentials: Squeeze Its, Dunkaroos, my Pogs in case someone wanted to start something, and my trusty Sonic the Hedgehog Trapper Keeper.

I'd bounce/hop over to my razor scooter. Sometimes I wore a helmet. Other times, momma didn't raise no dork. I'd wheelie my way down the street to my friends' house. Sometimes I'd grind the curb. Most of the time I fell on my ass repeatedly and caused irreparable damage to my shins.

The gang gathered in Jerry's basement. We'd start with a reading from a book of Goosebumps (praise be unto Slappy) before engaging in a round Robin tournament of Crossfire to determine who got to play as Odd Job in Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64.

We'd go get the Nintendo 64 from Jerry's older brother Scott's room, who wouldn't hear our knocking over the sound of his new Nirvana cassette. Finally, he'd open the door, smoke would billow out, and he'd bark at us in flannel before giving us our prize.

We'd play for a few hours, break out some candy cigarettes to commiserate after a particularly thrilling round, then take a lunch break. Jerry's mom always had the pizza rolls and pizza bagels at the ready (when pizza's on a bagel, you can eat pizza anytime). She'd provide some Capri Suns (tropical cooler, of course), and even offered the commemorative Batman mugs from McDonald's if any of us wanted to sip in sophistication.

We'd take a break to go down to the creek. Dig up worms and catch frogs and some shit. Sometimes we hit each other with sticks because the internet wasn't widespread yet. Once in a while we'd stumble upon a porno stash or a dead body.

Those were the days.

I'd come home with a new stash of Pogs, a bent Blastoise trading card that totally wasn't a fake, a raw wound on my hand from spinning the control stick in Mario Party, and the feeling that these were the best days of my life.

I wasn't wrong.

“You get caught in the…CROSS FIRE!”

We all know this song. It plays in our heads constantly. Some of us dream of it. Others of us make love to it. It is a song that changed a generation, no, the world, and one that has won numerous awards worldwide.

I’m talking of course about the legendary song in the commercial for the 90s toy cross fire. 

Of the five commercials that existed for toys in the 90s, this was by far the best. We are transported to a world that is Thunderdome-esque, where survival, courtship, property rights, and the worthiness of your very soul are determined by your ability to participate in this futuristic winner-take-all battle to the death.

YOU GET CAUGHT UP IN THE….CROSS FIRE! 

As a child, this was the apex. I never had felt so exhilarated or stimulated in my life to that point (and still have not to this day). I fondly remember the tingling I received throughout my body while watching those kids battle, practically throwing their bodies back and forth as they tried to shoot that thing in the middle, sending it spiraling at their opponent.

Had any of us ever seen something so epic? So powerful? So raw? 

I contend there has not been a better song written since. The 90s were encapsulated in this song and a generation was entranced. Unfortunately, brave reader, we all know what happened next…

This song, this glorious song that I still sing in public, that I use to inspire my children (and that they were conceived to), and that immediately helps you identify who is “the real” and who is in “the know”....

…was written about a terrible game/product.

I wish it were not so. I wish life was the Cross Fire portrayed to us in the commercials. But alas, this was our first exposure to the evils and deceptions of capitalism. The game looked so fast-paced, so intense, so fun but…

If you ever played it, you know. You kinda slowly shoot a metal ball at a plastic thing toward the other person’s goal. The plastic thing like barely fucking moves when you hit it. The game is slow paced and annoying. It is no futuristic epic battle. There is no amazing song playing.

There is no hope. There is no completion.

Only marketing practices designed to drain us of our money.

And therefore, in some ways, maybe Cross Fire did prepare us for the world. A whole marketing team thinking about what appeals to us, what we desire, what makes us stir, and commodifying that for their own gains. What makes us smile gleefully is what they use to exploit us and the beauty of Cross Fire truly can only exist in our minds.

Sigh. I’m getting old. But sometimes, when I lie in bed, trapped only with my thoughts, I hear something, faint and distant at first but slowing growing in resonance. A call from the void, no, a call from the past, an echo of the youthful hope I once had and still wish to cling onto…

…you get caught up in the…..CROSS FIRE!!!!!!

Note: for all you dickheads who keep calling my writing AI check out me writing this article: https://youtu.be/mTE4f4aI25c

Yes, I understand that a movie about a child gleefully torturing and nearly murdering a band of semi-homeless bandits, including one who is questionably mentally competent, is already a wild experience, but bear with me. The craziest part of Home Alone is not the traps, Kevin's genius level of engineering, the wackiness of how his family abandoned him, the harrowing toothbrush pursuit, or Kevin's mother's journey back to him(including what she was willing to do in the van with the Polka band to get back there).

No, the craziest part is the ending.

This family has been away from their child for days. They do not know if he's safe. They do not know if he's alive. Best case scenario he's been alone, questionably eating, questionably keeping the heat on (if there's even power). This is a serious life or death scenario, right? Their child is likely to be injured and if not, at the very least, deeply traumatized.

Think of how long it would take a child to earn back love and trust in this scenario.

Okay...now as to the ending of the movie....

Kevin's mother comes in. Embraces him. It is a Merry Christmas indeed! Then, right after, the family arrives! They got another flight. Hooray! Everyone...

Kinda banters around Kevin and is like, "wow it's cool you aren't dead. You bought groceries? Neato!" before...

Leaving him alone.

His entire family, including his parents, spend mayyyyybe one minute with Kevin before fucking off to unpack and do normal family things. No prolonged hugging. No prolonged tears or apologies. No processing. No soaking in the moment.

They see him, congratulate him, and leave him alone to stare out the window at the Old Man Kevin knows he will become.

What would you do if this was your child and you discovered them after they'd been alone for days? What would you say to them? How would you make it up to them? How quickly until you'd let them out of your sight?

This is fucking insane. His parents have to be a unique type of neglectful to engage in this goddamn behavior. Not only do you not care about your child, you have the memory capacity of a goldfish, forgot this ordeal, and do not believe you have anything to make up for.

Business as fucking usual.

No wonder Kevin wants to torture and kill those bandits. His family has psychologically wounded him to the degree he's become a sociopath.

EDIT: added "usual" in the second to last paragraph.

Countless have questioned what’s going on with Mickey and his band of mouse-ka-tools. If they are animals, why do they communicate and act like humans? Why do they subjugate and eat other animals? Why do they sometimes wear pants?

Some have theorized that Mickey and his pals are a series of genetic experiments or even the product of apocalyptic beastiality (now there’s a band name) but I think the truth has been right in front of our faces the entire time. We finally know why Donald Duck wears a shirt but displays his feathery balls for the world to see.

Mickey and his friends are all humans who are highly committed to their fursonas - the identity a furry takes on when in costume, and their clubhouse (which needs password to enter) is their sex club.

Let’s examine the evidence. First: Mickey’s fucking face. That is not the face of a mouse. Why is it human flesh colored? Why are his eyes so vacant and dead? Why is the rest of him black? Clearly he’s in a tight fitting leather mouse suit and what we are seeing his face. It explains why he doesn’t wear a shirt too - he and his friends are already in costume and then customize as they see fit.

Then there’s the theme song. “It’s the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, come inside it’s fun inside.” Clearly Mickey and his pals are cream-pie enthusiasts (oh garsh!) who enjoy mercilessly raw hot-diggity-dogging Donald’s feathery butthole.
Just imagine Goofy going to absolute town on that speech impeded bastard. Oh wait, you don’t have to, you can find that here

Speaking of Donald, it is clear he has a humiliation kink, and that he and the others get off on Donald acting like a complete dumbshit weirdo who always gets hurt. Everything blows up in Donald’s face and everyone seems to love it that way. Donald doesn’t wear pants because it’s his sexy way of expressing himself and it also provides easy access to his giblets.

Also Daisy wears her huge shoes because she repeatedly stomps Donald in the dick while the professor watches.

All lighthearted jokes aside, this crew of weirdos being furries is the most likely explanation as to why they act like humans and treat other animals like animals. They have tools of all sorts for any kind of sordid adventure (ohhhh Tooooooodles) and consent to treat and use each other as they wish.

I think it’s a solid theory

Oh and Pluto is actually a human too. He’s just really committed to the animal bit. It’s his kink like the dude in The Shining.

The original Pokemon video games and anime unlocked something in me I did not know existed. A yearning for more. For becoming. For adventure. For a world of possibilities, trials, tribulations, creativity, and friendship. Unique creatures. Unique challenges. Forging a path no one has done before.

The world opened for me and so much seemed ahead.

I lost myself in those video games. They provided an outlet. A place of patience, dedication, and most importantly control in a childhood which lacked such structure or stability. In the games, I could be the hero. I could raise my Pokemon with love and care and utilize them to advance forward and jointly accomplish. It was a far cry from the shadows of a traumatic childhood. This was a sunny place of adventure, where trying hard and pushing forward came with results.

I wanted to be the very best, like no one ever was.

I remember walking in my yard, over mounds of dirt and grass, pushing my Gameboy's batteries to the limit, enjoying the summer chirp of cicadas, the warm air, and the freedom that came with summer all while having an epic battle against Brock, trying so hard to have my Charmander overcome this hurdle (we eventually did.) In those moments, nothing else mattered and all pains were far away.

The anime made this adventure real. A boy without a father going out there, leading with his heart, and finding more than he ever thought possible. The friendships he made along the way were the true prize, but damn, weren't those battles fun?

I wanted to be the very best, like no one ever was. The thought swelled in my mind and heart, sometimes bringing tears to my eyes. The games and anime gave me hope, even if I knew Pokemon weren't real. They were real somewhere, fueling my beating heart as I got through the toughest days. And although they are just a game and anime, they became something more.

Part of my own growth. My own training. My own journey.

Beating the Elite 4 the first time is something I'll never forget (you're my boy, Blastoise), and it prepared me to put all I could into the future challenges of my life. And now, as an adult, for my job. my wife, and my children....

I want to be the very best, like no one ever was.

I realize this sounds ridiculous. Caillou is a four-year-old Canadian sociopath, Charlie Brown is a clinically depressed American child from the 1950s who likely has brain cancer, and Doug Funnie is an ironically named wet blanket who lives in Bluffington lost in delusion who occasionally puts underwear over his pants.

But look at them. Bald. Round-headed. Dough-sack builds. Milquetoast. Socially inept. Weird relationships with dogs. Chronically dissatisfied with their lives no matter what positive things happen. They are barely supervised by parents who either don’t want them or don’t have the capacity to invest in what their children are doing. 

These aren't three different characters. They're three stages of the same man's psychological deterioration. A grecian tragedy focused on mental health and steady decline. 

Caillou is patient zero. As a young child, Caillou is an insufferable narcissistic monster whose emotional regulation consists primarily of screaming until the universe bends to his will. He whines. He throws tantrums. There is no modicum of happiness in this sneezy shit-stain’s life. He treats his parts less like humans and more like servants to his perpetually unsatiated ego.

But we never see him grow older. We never see what becomes of this stinky rotten bastard. Why? 

Because something happened. I believe Caillou caused an accident that killed his family. This is no stretch for anyone who has watched the show. Constant tantrums. Screaming. Impulsive behavior. Perhaps he threw a shit-fit while the family was driving and caused an accident that only he survived. Maybe he played with something like a dipshit that set the house on fire. 

What we do know is that after that trauma occurred, Caillou ended up with a new family, and they gave him a new identity: Charlie Brown. 

Think about this blockhead’s defining personality characteristics. Charlie Brown is profoundly depressed. He hates himself. He expects failure. He desperately wants acceptance while simultaneously seeming convinced that everyone will eventually reject him. He blames himself for everything just as Caillou blamed himself for nothing. Caillou screams because the world won't give him what he wants. Charlie Brown sighs because he believes that he doesn't deserve anything at all.

The bald bastard has been broken. 

And where the hell are his parents? 

Seriously.

They are absent from his physical and emotional life. He spirals into delusion, imagining his dog and a bird as fucking pilots. He has emotionally numbed and distanced himself to the degree where he doesn’t even process their words. 

Wah wah. Wah wah wah.

God someone help this child. 

He has already lost one family. Now he's living among strangers, emotionally disconnected from the adults responsible for him and surrounded by children who continually reinforce his belief that he is worthless. His one outlet is a fake psychiatrist who shit-talks him, bullies him, and pulls a football out from under his foot, just as life has and will. 

There goes trust. There goes hope. There goes access to help. 

Welcome to America, Charlie Brown

Eventually Charlie Brown deteriorates enough that his adoptive family realizes something is deeply wrong with this bald little bastard. His “adventures” are friends having fun, talking shit on him, all while Charlie Brown complains about himself and the burden of living. 

They move him to another family. Shipped off and away to Bluffington, USA. 

The new adoptive family gives him a new name. Doug Funnie. 

This snot covered napkin is the final stage of the illness. The physical evidence remains obvious. Doug is another oddly bald, round-headed child whose entire personality consists of anxiety and disappointment. He pines for a Mayonnaise woman who wants nothing to do with him. She would clearly rather have Chalkie Studebaker take her down to Stinson's pond to bag a nematode. Doug gets clowned on by Roger Klotz (who is fucking awesome) and even his problematic stereotype of a best friend, Skeeter. His adoptive parents pay attention to their drug addict daughter Judy instead of Doug.

They even let Doug wander over to his neighbor, Mr. Dink’s house, who does “special experiments” with Doug, speaks moistly in a creepy voice, and even canon in the show rubs Doug’s back. Mr. Dink has no children but has made Doug his boy and it is VERY clear what is going on here and yet…

No one helps him. 

Doug is screaming out for help. He disappears into dissociative trances. Smash Adams. Durango Doug. Wa-na-na Jack Bandit. Quailman. He imagines himself as bold and capable, as debonair and worthy of love. 

All things he is not. 

All what he cannot have.

And sadly his apex form wears underwear on the outside and a belt on his fucking head. 

This poor bastard. 

And unlike Charlie Brown's fantasies, Doug's delusions increasingly interfere with reality. He speaks to these characters. He acts out scenarios. He becomes so absorbed in them that he has nearly hurt himself. 

Then there's Porkchop. Porkchop is the smoking gun. Charlie Brown had Snoopy. Doug has Porkchop. Both are bizarrely intelligent dogs owned by socially isolated bald children, except Porkchop's supposedly human abilities are even more pronounced. He communicates with Doug, drives vehicles, constructs things, sets traps, and repeatedly displays greater competence than his owner. 

Porkchop, a fucking dog, has more guts, autonomy, and drive than Doug ever could. 

Here is a boy, spiraling in depression, lost in delusion, socially isolated, on the path to being a school shooter, a product of a past trauma, the same bald head, new parents, a new town…

And the same suffering. 

A baby wanting affection and validation to an insatiable degree. A child believing he is unworthy of any of it. An adolescent spiraling into the void at the center of himself. 

Because Caillou is gone. That baby is dead. Charlie Brown is a broken memory. All that's left is Doug Funnie, sitting alone in Bluffington, wearing underwear over his shorts, talking to a dog that he thinks can drive a car, and wondering if anyone can ever love him. 

One little voice is calling me, calling me. 

Wah wah.

Wah wah wah

Somewhere in my memory....

We all know Kevin McAllister as cheeky suburban white kid who enjoys pretending to shoot the pizza delivery guy and inflicting grievous bodily harm to questionably mentally competent bandits. Plenty has been written about how Kevin has a taste for the sadistic, taking glee in torturing the Wet Bandits with his Saw villain traps, and how the wounds he inflicts would certainly kill most people.

So how do the Wet Bandits survive being set on fire, bashed in the head with metal, and falling incredible distances?

Because they aren't real. They are the product of a lonely, abandoned child's imagination, a kid yearning to matter so much so that he concocted a fantasy in which he had to "defend" his home so he finally felt apart of it.

Kevin is legitimately left home alone by his family. This is his breaking point in the film. After years of emotional neglect, ostracizing, and bullying, his mind can take no more. He begins singing Bing Crosby, lathering himself in after shave, plotting a faux-murder of the pizza delivery boy, and falling into an obsessive tangent about the quality of a tooth brush.

Kevin just wants to be loved. He just wants to matter. And so, he turns the cop at the beginning of the film into an imaginary villain and plays out the events of the movie. Kevin is clever. Kevin is smart. Kevin is capable. All the opposites of how his family view him.

The evidence to this? At the end of the film, the house is pristine. No evidence of all the damage. A child couldn't clean all of that up. And that gold tooth? Who is to say it didn't fall out when the cop originally visited?

Kevin is a broken child losing himself in violent fantasies, and can you blame him? The end of the movie is FUCKING BONKERS. It is the craziest part. His mother and father storm in after not seeing him for days, not being sure if he was alive, and they hug him, ask him like three questions, and then in probably a minute's screen time, decide all is well and fuck off to do other things around the house with the other kids.

They leave him alone again. No prolonged hugging. No prolonged processing. No quality time. Back to business as usual with Kevin left to stare outside at the lonely man he worries he will one day become and project that he had something to do with this fellow reuniting with his family.

It is projection. It is fantasy.

Its is the entire movie.

Somewhere in my memory....

I realize this sounds ridiculous. Caillou is a four-year-old Canadian sociopath, Charlie Brown is a clinically depressed American child from the 1950s who likely has brain cancer, and Doug Funnie is an ironically named wet blanket who lives in Bluffington lost in delusion who occasionally puts underwear over his pants.

But look at them. Bald. Round-headed. Dough-sack builds. Milquetoast. Socially inept. Weird relationships with dogs. Chronically dissatisfied with their lives no matter what positive things happen. They are barely supervised by parents who either don’t want them or don’t have the capacity to invest in what their children are doing. 

These aren't three different characters. They're three stages of the same man's psychological deterioration. A grecian tragedy focused on mental health and steady decline. 

Caillou is patient zero. As a young child, Caillou is an insufferable narcissistic monster whose emotional regulation consists primarily of screaming until the universe bends to his will. He whines. He throws tantrums. There is no modicum of happiness in this sneezy shit-stain’s life. He treats his parts less like humans and more like servants to his perpetually unsatiated ego.

But we never see him grow older. We never see what becomes of this stinky rotten bastard. Why? 

Because something happened. I believe Caillou caused an accident that killed his family. This is no stretch for anyone who has watched the show. Constant tantrums. Screaming. Impulsive behavior. Perhaps he threw a shit-fit while the family was driving and caused an accident that only he survived. Maybe he played with something like a dipshit that set the house on fire. 

What we do know is that after that trauma occurred, Caillou ended up with a new family, and they gave him a new identity: Charlie Brown. 

Think about this blockhead’s defining personality characteristics. Charlie Brown is profoundly depressed. He hates himself. He expects failure. He desperately wants acceptance while simultaneously seeming convinced that everyone will eventually reject him. He blames himself for everything just as Caillou blamed himself for nothing. Caillou screams because the world won't give him what he wants. Charlie Brown sighs because he believes that he doesn't deserve anything at all.

The bald bastard has been broken. 

And where the hell are his parents? 

Seriously.

They are absent from his physical and emotional life. He spirals into delusion, imagining his dog and a bird as fucking pilots. He has emotionally numbed and distanced himself to the degree where he doesn’t even process their words. 

Wah wah. Wah wah wah.

God someone help this child. 

He has already lost one family. Now he's living among strangers, emotionally disconnected from the adults responsible for him and surrounded by children who continually reinforce his belief that he is worthless. His one outlet is a fake psychiatrist who shit-talks him, bullies him, and pulls a football out from under his foot, just as life has and will. 

There goes trust. There goes hope. There goes access to help. 

Welcome to America, Charlie Brown

Eventually Charlie Brown deteriorates enough that his adoptive family realizes something is deeply wrong with this bald little bastard. His “adventures” are friends having fun, talking shit on him, all while Charlie Brown complains about himself and the burden of living. 

They move him to another family. Shipped off and away to Bluffington, USA. 

The new adoptive family gives him a new name. Doug Funnie. 

This snot covered napkin is the final stage of the illness. The physical evidence remains obvious. Doug is another oddly bald, round-headed child whose entire personality consists of anxiety and disappointment. He pines for a Mayonnaise woman who wants nothing to do with him. She would clearly rather have Chalkie Studebaker take her down to Stinson's pond to bag a nematode. Doug gets clowned on by Roger Klotz (who is fucking awesome) and even his problematic stereotype of a best friend, Skeeter. His adoptive parents pay attention to their drug addict daughter Judy instead of Doug.

They even let Doug wander over to his neighbor, Mr. Dink’s house, who does “special experiments” with Doug, speaks moistly in a creepy voice, and even canon in the show rubs Doug’s back. Mr. Dink has no children but has made Doug his boy and it is VERY clear what is going on here and yet…

No one helps him. 

Doug is screaming out for help. He disappears into dissociative trances. Smash Adams. Durango Doug. Wa-na-na Jack Bandit. Quailman. He imagines himself as bold and capable, as debonair and worthy of love. 

All things he is not. 

All what he cannot have.

And sadly his apex form wears underwear on the outside and a belt on his fucking head. 

This poor bastard. 

And unlike Charlie Brown's fantasies, Doug's delusions increasingly interfere with reality. He speaks to these characters. He acts out scenarios. He becomes so absorbed in them that he has nearly hurt himself. 

Then there's Porkchop. Porkchop is the smoking gun. Charlie Brown had Snoopy. Doug has Porkchop. Both are bizarrely intelligent dogs owned by socially isolated bald children, except Porkchop's supposedly human abilities are even more pronounced. He communicates with Doug, drives vehicles, constructs things, sets traps, and repeatedly displays greater competence than his owner. 

Porkchop, a fucking dog, has more guts, autonomy, and drive than Doug ever could. 

Here is a boy, spiraling in depression, lost in delusion, socially isolated, on the path to being a school shooter, a product of a past trauma, the same bald head, new parents, a new town…

And the same suffering. 

A baby wanting affection and validation to an insatiable degree. A child believing he is unworthy of any of it. An adolescent spiraling into the void at the center of himself. 

Because Caillou is gone. That baby is dead. Charlie Brown is a broken memory. All that's left is Doug Funnie, sitting alone in Bluffington, wearing underwear over his shorts, talking to a dog that he thinks can drive a car, and wondering if anyone can ever love him. 

One little voice is calling me, calling me. 

Wah wah.

Wah wah wah

Square, spongy-crusted, often cold in the middle, pizza with a layer of that delicious plastic cheese on top. It is a staple of American childhoods. Pizza day is a day second only to the Scholastic Book Fair in the minds and hearts of most American children, who are conditioned to solely look forward to eating junk food or spending money.

That pizza was utterly disgusting.

That pizza was amazing.

That pizza was meant to prepare us for life.

Few people know that the bell system to change classes in the US is normed from the factory system. Lower class neighborhoods had most of the community working in a mill or factory which signaled shift changes by ringing a bell. Thus, public schools in these communities trained kids to be ready by using a bell system to switch classes.

Similar to this, I believe we were given terrible square pizza as preparation for the rest of our lives. We get excited: hooray pizza! only to be met with cold, soggy malnutrition. We are hit with a rush of hope and promise, only to be worn down by the reality of life deals us. We were taught that what we hope for isn't always what we dream it to be nor can the rush of those ups and downs carry us too far.

Expect good things but don't expect them to be too good. Don't get too big for britches kids, cause life will hit you with a frozen layer of cheese at any time, and no, the lunch ladies don't give out free seconds.

I love you cafeteria pizza.

I hate you cafeteria pizza.

You've prepared me for a life I feel the same about.

I’m here to talk about the very best day of the year for children of our generation. And no, it wasn’t Christmas, even though some kids amazingly got two of them (and yet for some reason Timmy Johnson wasn’t excited).

The Scholastic Book Fair was the apex of childhood, the point at which most of our lives and happiness peaked. Honestly, if I had died right then and there, buried in a coffin made of Goosebumps books, I’d have died happy and with a life well lived.

Instead of learning spelling words or about the lives of famous slaveholders, we got to rejoice in unfettered exploration. Books with living dummies and skeletons? Check. Books about a man running around in his underwear while hypnotized? Also check. Nancy Drew mysteries, Harry Potter adventures, and the raddest effin pencils and erasers you could ever imagine. I mean seriously, some of them were like little monsters you could put on your pencil and if you got one you’d be the coolest kid in class and everyone would look up to you until Nancy Wright stole it, may she burn in hell.

Actually, my apologies to Nancy’s family. I’m sending my condolences for your loss.

We were riding the high back then. Twenty bucks from our parents seemed like infinity. How many pogs could you get for that price? Comparing our swag felt like sharing status and community.

Little did we know that we were being primed for the rest of our lives, and not in a good way. Save up your money and spend it on entertaining and luxuries. More more more. Compare your possessions and clothes to other and never feel like you are enough. Buy your childhood nostalgia back over and over and over with new remakes and products.

Feed the machine. Experience the book fair. Every moment. Every day. Block out the rest of the doldrums and wait for that fleeting moment where you buy, buy, buy….

But don’t let the happiness wait to long, for you must buy again soon.

What’s that line, about dying a hero or living long enough to become the villain? Maybe that’s just what age can do to us. We had our oasis. We had our Nirvana, and in our innocence it was bliss. Maybe, sometimes, after a long and arduous day of work and stressing over the bills, we can lay our head on a pillow, close our eyes, and fade back to those days, those simpler times where the rubber hand stamper you bought for fifty cents was the coolest thing in the world.

We had everything then, and perhaps too much of it now

I’m here to talk about the very best day of the year for children of our generation. And no, it wasn’t Christmas, even though some kids amazingly got two of them (and yet for some reason Timmy Johnson wasn’t excited).

The Scholastic Book Fair was the apex experience of childhood, the point at which most of our lives and happiness peaked. Honestly, if I had died right then and there, buried in a coffin made of Goosebumps books, I’d have died happy and with a life well lived.

Instead of learning spelling words or about the lives of famous slaveholders, we got to rejoice in unfettered exploration. Books with living dummies and skeletons? Check. Books about a man running around in his underwear while hypnotized? Also check. Nancy Drew mysteries, Harry Potter adventures, and the raddest effin pencils and erasers you could ever imagine. I mean seriously, some of them were like little monsters you could put on your pencil and if you got one you’d be the coolest kid in class and everyone would look up to you until Nancy Wright stole it, may she burn in hell.

Actually, my apologies to Nancy’s family. I’m sending my condolences for your loss.

We were riding the high back then. Twenty bucks from our parents seemed like infinity. Comparing our swag felt like sharing status and community.

Little did we know that we were being primed for the rest of our lives, and not in a good way. Save up your money and spend it on entertaining and luxuries. More more more. Compare your possessions and clothes to other and never feel like you are enough. Buy your childhood nostalgia back over and over and over with new remakes and products.

Feed the machine. Experience the book fair. Every moment. Every day. Block out the rest of the doldrums and wait for that fleeting moment where you buy, buy, buy….

But don’t let the happiness wait to long, for you must buy again soon.

What’s that line, about dying a hero or living long enough to become the villain? Maybe that’s just what age can do to us. We had our oasis. We had our Nirvana, and in our innocence it was bliss. Maybe, sometimes, after a long and arduous day of work and stressing over the bills, we can lay our head on a pillow, close our eyes, and fade back to those days, those simpler times where the rubber hand stamper you bought for fifty cents was the coolest thing in the world.

We had everything then, and perhaps too much of it now.

People have clowned on Josh Allen for being 0-7 in overtime games including some major playoff battles where he laid absolutely stinkers, but I think we're all missing the point.

Josh Allen is not that catastrophically bad. Him turning into Nathan Peterman (who once beat him out to be the starter), is not an accident but by design.

Josh Allen honors the working class roots of Buffalo, NY and shows solitary by refusing to give his very best during unpaid overtime periods. Buffalo has manufacturing and rust belt union roots. Worker's rights and protections help build this city and its culture. If Josh Allen went out there and put his mind, body, and soul on the line for a legitimately uncompensated extra period, would he be a scab? A sell out? A spiritual detractor to what makes Buffalo historically great?

Let's give Allen credit here. He's a man of the people and is standing for principle. Once the rules of overtime are compensated in the union contract, you'll see a different man on the field.

The Cleveland Browns. Their mascot is a man who didn't want the team named after him. Or maybe it's an elf. Or maybe a bull dog? An orange helmet?

Actually, it is misery.

The city of Cleveland and its die-hard fans have been subjugated to decades of having their hopes risen only for them to be smashed like a super charged car driven by Henry Ruggs or Anquan Boldin's face in that one Jets game. Or Diana Russini doing everything it takes to get the deep scoop.

I empathize with you Cleveland fans, for this suffering is not random. It is not God casting this die, but the nefarious United States government. Just as the US has done before with the Tuskegee Syphillis experiment and Project MK Ultra, shadowy forces of the government have made Cleveland an unwilling participant in a study on hope, misery, and existential collapse.

The team rose to prominence with a bevy of titles lead by all-timer Otto Graham in the 50s. Then the 60s came along with Jim Brown, perhaps the greatest player in NFL history. But just as the city began to slide deeper into an economic and social decline, the US government decided to test a hypothesis.

What is the impact of hope and devastation on a US city? How is the emotional bandwidth, mental health, and financial stability of a city impacted by severely devastated dashed hopes. In short: can controlling the fate of an NFL franchise tangibly impact the social and economic development of a US city and can we eventually weaponize these tactics against our future enemies?

Cleveland has been stuck in a decades long longitudinal study which has gathered a great deal of meaningful military data while also causing incalculable levels of alcoholism.

Now each passionate Browns fan as a rite of passage etches a wound into their body, like a roman numeral, for each of the majorly devastating turn of events in their franchise history. The loyal and faithful are indeed nearly completely covered head to toe. So for Cleveland fans, this quick recap will not be unfamiliar, but it may make those scars tingle just so.

Note that all of these events were influenced by government agents. This isn't your fault, Cleveland. As the city fell into a slump, they traded HOF wide receiver Paul Warfield to the Dolphins, who tore it up and won titles. Meanwhile, the Browns mired in mediocrity for the entire decade.

Red Right 88 happened in 1980 where the government handlers called in an absolutely terrible decision which cost Cleveland the game against the eventual Super Bowl Champions. This was a test in how a city handled "what could have been" and what the resulting levels of economic and emotional depression were.

The study wanted to see how quickly recovery was possible and if it would stabilize even if hopes were ripped away. Cleveland was given an unlikely hero in the beer-bellied Bernie Kosar, who probably couldn't beat Rosie O'Donnell in a foot race. Still, the local boy raised hopes and brought Cleveland to new heights: championship contention.

Enter horse-faced California boy, engineered in a lab to be the antithesis to everything blue collar midwesterners loved and respected. He was crafted as the perfect villain to this story as they watched him time and time again dash their hopes in the AFC title games via improbable means.

This is all a show, Cleveland, and you strung along like a puppet, the manipulators collecting their data and laughing.

You had Bill Belichick and the handlers decided he wouldn't do shit for you only to eventually become arguably the greatest coach in NFL history. Still, you stuck around as fans.

They took your team away from you. They orchestrated you losing your beloved franchise who you stuck with despite the pain and suffering. Another dagger in the heart, a wad of spit in the eye, and yet STILL, STILL you remained loyal to the NFL. STILL you took back an expansion franchise, letting them drop wads of shit on your plate, a fan base and city starved for the completion of the promise they've been offered for decades.

Yes, they gave you shit. Tim Couch. Years of misery. And the team ripped from your womb, the Baltimore Ravens, they go ahead and right away win the Super Bowl, another devastating psychological experiment.

The scientists yukked it up as they analyzed your financial and crime data. They encouraged your alcoholism. They had more strings to pull.

What I wrote above seems all made up. Too ridiculous to be real for a sports franchise. Well, let's throw in unparalleled devastatingly bad quarterback play for about two decades. Let's make every single guy just NOT WORK OUT AT ALL. Let's see how a city responds to that.

Let's have them pin their hopes on Brady Quinn and the engineered-in-a-lab level of train wreck that was Johnny Manziel (hell of an MMA fighter though). Let's give them Baker Mayfield, a ray of hope, the city seeing the light.... only to have him injured....cast off...

And then rise to the greatest heights of his career.

It's a sick joke being played on your city. Your suffering is the point. How much can you endure and what does it do to you? Can a business entity continue sucking you dry of your emotional and financial capital no matter how much they disappoint and disrespect you?

Then, of course, Deshaun Watson. A plague disguised as hope. The small-pox blanket of our generation. Mr. Touchy-Feely himself comes over, and on top of being an irredeemable shitbag, he magically losses all of his football playing ability, setting your team back tens of millions of dollars and so many valuable draft picks.

It's a joke.

All of it.

Manufactured to test you.

To destroy you.

And yet....

You remain, Cleveland fans. As hardened and steadfast as ever. And your city, while it has been through its knocks...well...I'll be damned, it really has been on the upswing. Arts, culture, economy....

You know what? If this is a goddamn social experiment, Cleveland, Ohio, you fucking pass, whatever that means. They've done everything to do and more. They've denigrated you in ways unimaginable and yet you still hold that passionate flame. You still persist. You still try and do good.

I never thought I'd say it but...

Damn, Cleveland Browns fans, you all are an inspiration, a true mark of the indomitable human spirit as well as the power of alcohol and chicken wings.

The trade of Myles Garret makes it clear the government is not yet over its meddling but given the current administration's view of science, I think we're pretty close to this study being shut down for good.

God speed, Cleveland Browns fans, and good luck.