Day 3 Of My "South Park" Hold-Out And Already I Miss --

My South Park embargo.

-- and already I miss Timmy (For those of you unfamiliar with "South Park," Timmy is a little boy who is confined to a wheelchair and for the most part never says anything except "TIMMY!" The only exception I can think of is when he has a pet turkey named Gobbles, and says: "Gobbles." Timmy's relationship with Gobble's is one of the most movingly tender episodes I've ever seen in a dramatic depiction.), Jimmy (a little boy on crutches who, despite a very severe stutter, is determined to make it as a stand-up comedian), Butters, Twitch, "CRIPPLEFIGHT!!!" (Eh, just watch the show.), etc.

I have some serious issues with climate-change deniers. That doesn't mean I disagree with all of them about everything. Although offhand Parker and Stone are the only ones I can think of who aren't complete assholes in every way. Seriously, climate-change deniers tend to be racist, sexist, anti-union and just generally flat-out Republican. Trey Parker and Matt Stone (the creators of "South Park") are none of the above, except climate-change deniers.

Climate change, however, isn't the only issue upon which they're complete douchebags. They're also among that group of Amurrkins who are neither Democrats nor Republicans, which means, since Amurrka does not yet have proportional representation, that they're a good deal worse than useless politically. You know, when I think about this, and Stone saying that he hates conservatives but he hates liberals a lot more, it suddenly makes me miss the show a lot less again. Douchebags who take this sort of political stand in a 2-party system, without lifting a finger for the cause of converting to a multi-party parliamentary system like most modern countries have, resemble agnostics, inasmuch as they think they're smarter than all the rest of us, but they're not. Smug and above-the-fray doesn't mean you're smart, it means you're smug and stupid.

And this -- and, for example, Parker saying that of all the wonderful and absurd religions in the world, none is more absurd to him than atheism (Lack of religion ain't a religion, Trey, and "spirituality" is religion.) -- and some other stuff, makes me wonder if Parker and Stone are hopeless cases, whether there's just no talking to them. While the brilliant parts of their show, on the other hand, make me think that there must be some talking to them. (Enten/eller.) But to be able to talk to them face-to-face whenever anything about "South Park" pisses me off, I'm going to have to be extremely famous. One more very important reason why all of you reading this must praise and link it and this blog everywhere you can and tweet and re-tweet links to them and +1 them and dedicate Facebook groups and billboards to them and always tell everyone -- EVERYONE, not just friends and family and co-workers, but also postal carriers and people waiting with you in lines and waiting rooms and all of those complete strangers on all of those crowded sidewalks all over the world -- that I must win the 2015 Nobel Prize -IN- Literature. It's July. Time is running out. And I'm eloquent. If anybody can make Parker and Stone "come to Jesus," environmentally speaking, face it -- it's me.

Imagine re-edited episodes of "South Park," where the animation stops and we see a live-action 2-shot of Parker and Stone, and they say: "Yeah. We were total douchebags and morons to doubt climate change and mock people for trying to do something about it. They were struggling to save OUR lives too, and the lives of our children, and we mocked them for it. Steven Bollinger was able to cut through the muck of our smug, stubborn stupidity, to allow us to finally see this and other very important things. What a genius. If ever anyone thoroughly deserved a Nobel Prize -- well. Back to the show, but first: be sure to vote Democratic, and to be real watchdogs on Democratic politicians' voting on environmental issues!"

Imagine it -- and then help me win that Nobel. For the sake of the planet. (And so that I can get a platinum Rolex Daytona and other cool stuff.)

The REAL Story About Why I'm the Wrong Monkey

The name seemed like a good idea at the time. But you've got to consider that I was kind of upset.

The time: 2008. The world was younger then, and so was Ronny Cox. (What? He was.) George W Bush made us all laugh with giddy joy at the thought of his administration ending soon. I mostly hung out at one Internet forum, as opposed to splitting my Internet-forum time pretty evenly between several. That's how I usually roll: one forum at a time. And this was a fine forum, full of sophisticated and polite people -- extremely polite compared to many if not most Internet cliques. And so perhaps I didn't see as clearly as I might have that I didn't fit in. This wasn't the sort of situation where one of the other forum participants was going to tell me, "Steven, twenty of us had a secret meeting and talked it over and held a vote. Four people abstained, two said they liked having you around and sixteen said they wanted you to stop posting here and leave us alone. So, if you don't mind... Skedaddle, please." That just wasn't going to happen. What actually happened was that someone said to me that I might like this other forum. And I took that to mean: "Steven, twenty of us had a secret meeting and talked it over[...]" and so forth.

And my feelings were hurt. And I did leave that forum and go to the other one, and instead of calling myself Steven Bollinger I logged into the new forum as The Wrong Monkey, because I had sublimated my sadness over not fitting in into anger and grandiosity, and was saying things to myself like, "I'll show them! I'll show them ALL! I'm going to be a huge superstar and they'll be sorry they dissed me, but it'll be too late! THEY DONE GONE AND MESSED WITH THE WRONG MONKEY!" All in all, it closely resembled the process by which Butters became Professor chaos.

That's the ugly truth. That's where the handle came from, and the blog name came from the handle. (Which is sometimes abbreviated as TheWM or TWM.)

Did I show them all? No, I don't think so. Not yet, anyway. Did I completely mis-read the first forum, and do sixteen of them actually miss me terribly, while only two are glad I left? Gee, I'd sure like to think so. It's possible. But I don't think so. Am I glad that I've been referring to myself for several years now as The Wrong Monkey? Yes, although at the same time I find it very strange and somewhat embarrassing, if that makes any sense.