I have secrets that I must confess, my friends. They haunt me and cause me to lose sleep. Here and now, I shall admit some things that I have never admitted to anyone before. I must do this in order to cleanse my soul and give my mind rest. Do not judge me harshly…

I don’t think Dane Cook is funny

That’s right. I don’t think he’s funny. Hate me if you want. I remember when I first saw his act after everyone in the entire world went on and on about how he’s the next big thing in stand-up comedy. His first joke? “If I ever own a pet, it’d be a SNAKE! YEAH!!!”

That’s, uh, that’s the joke? That’s…what? Where is there a joke in that? Is it me? That’s terrible. That is beyond terrible, actually. Well, we can’t judge this guy over one joke, but I’ve heard more of his jokes, and none of them are stellar. None of them earn Dane the title of being the next big thing in comedy. I think the younger generation is just so stupid and sheltered that they have no idea about past and infinitely better comedians. They think Dane Cook is the peak of comedic genius and they are wrong.

Dane’s jokes aren’t jokes. They’re just him going on and on, and making weird poses as he does it. He’s like the hyper class clown in school who wasn’t actually funny, just really loud. However, the popular kids thought he was funny, so everyone else decided to laugh along, although they knew deep down that the kid just needed to be smacked. Dane Cook is that, but on a national level.

But before I keep going, let me just say that I do respect Dane Cook, for he made some very smart moves with his career. The most important one was buying the domain name danecook.com. This was back in 2001, and a lot of comedians didn’t have their own websites back then (jeez, I’m talking like 2001 was in a time before the Internet was invented or something). Dane’s fellow comedians called him a fucking idiot for spending all of his money on a website, but it ended up being a success and now every comedian has one. That doesn’t mean Dane Cook is funny. Gallagher did pretty well with his career back in the early 1980’s, but that doesn’t mean the watermelon-smashing motherfucker is funny. I think that’s something all of us can agree on.

Anyway, I think it’s time for people like me to stand up to those who like Dane Cook’s humor. I know there are a lot of people who share my opinion out there – they’re just too afraid to say it. Sure, it’s just a simple matter of one opinion against another, but…no, it’s more than that. This is the Internet, and mindless arguments about comedians are its backbone.

It never gets old. Never.

People, please come out of the haze. Dane Cook sucks.

I once threw a rock at a kid’s head

It was a big fucking rock, too. It was the kind that splits skulls and causes brain damage. It was a total accident, and I feel terrible about it to this day.

My family just moved to California and I had no friends. Oak Hills Elementary in Agoura Hills had just been built, but the playground was not installed yet. So we had a large concrete field. It was just concrete – no grass or slides or swings. I think we had two tetherball courts. You can imagine the amount of band-aids the nurse had to apply to scraped knees on a daily basis. Anyway, the staff unloaded a bin full of various balls during every recess and everyone just invented games. Meanwhile, I was standing in this corner by myself near an empty classroom window. Don’t feel sorry for me – any kid could have made friends in first grade (and I eventually did), but I was just really shy.

Interesting fact: A scene in the awful movie 3 Ninjas was filmed at my school, about three years after I left. Remember the stupid dunk scene where one of the kid ninjas fucking dunks the ball at the school basketball courts, wowing the bullies? Oak Hills Elementary, bitches. I only liked this scene because I saw that Oak Hills Elementary finally had playgrounds and basketball courts installed.

Ignore the flying kid. Focus on the building, for I was educated there from 1988-1989

Let’s go back to the whole rock-throwing thing. Since I was so bored, I began to toss pebbles and rocks. No one was around – I just wanted to see how far I could throw. One day, a large rock was there. The thing was a beast – it was a big slab of mineral, and there were numerous pebbles embedded into it. Oh, that baby was prime throwin’ material. I could barely pick it up with one hand (it couldn’t have been that heavy since my 6-year old self managed to lift it). With all my might, I chucked the thing. It flew quite a distance. Unfortunately, some poor kid walked right into its flight path. BOOM!

SHIT! I fucking nailed a kid’s cranium with a rock! I stood there with my mouth hanging open in disbelief. What was the kid doing there? I was nowhere near all the action on the concrete field! The kid fell to the ground, crying and holding his head. Field monitors and a teacher ran over to him. Other kids did, too. So what did I do? I pretended to be an innocent witness and ran to see if he was alive. The teachers were asking us if we saw who threw the rock, and I joined in on the chorus of “no.” No one saw me do it. I was free.

The kid was fine. He wasn’t even bleeding. Pussy.

I think black people look good in yellow

I just do. I think they pull off yellow outfits better than white people. It’s not racist. Ever see a white guy in yellow? Something’s always off.

I once opened my friends’ Christmas presents

Oh God, this one…

First off, these people weren’t really my friends. They were the daughters of a family we were close with. Plus, they were Jewish, so they were Chanukah presents (Christmas is more of a draw, even when it comes to article segments). So my family was at this other family’s house, blah blah blah…it was boring. It was no place for a 5-year old Fishman. They told me that they had a Nintendo in the basement, so I was there in a flash.

The basement was a mess, but I managed to find the Nintendo and TV. As I was playing Super Mario Bros., I noticed three unwrapped video games in the corner of my eye. They were kind of hidden, but I spotted them. The only one I remember was Soccer. Clearly, these were gifts for the girls for Chanukah. They still had their plastic wrapping around them, including those little plastic hangars that the cartridges were hung from at Toys R’ Us, behind the glass casing. You know what I mean.

Anyway, it didn’t occur to me that they were gifts. You all know how I am when it comes to video games – my common sense flies out the window. I tore them open and played them. I must have played for hours. What the hell was my family doing all that time? Playing a fierce game of Jenga?

My family eventually decided to leave so I was called back upstairs. I ran out of the basement, leaving the video games amid the plastic wrap, Styrofoam, and empty cases. It was like a hurricane rolled through. I didn’t even take Soccer out of the Nintendo. Hell, I probably didn’t even turn the Nintendo off or hit the pause button. I just bolted out of there. I ruined their Chanukah, probably. And who knows? Maybe the parents thought that their daughters did it, so they beat them. That’d be funny, but that’s only a best-case scenario.

One time I hugged my grandmother while I had a boner and poked her in the stomach

Go ahead, laugh or be disgusted. I’ve heard it/seen it all before. And no, I wasn’t naked, you sick fuck.

I was at my computer, not even looking at porn. Honest. However, I was surfing the ‘Net with a hand down my pants. You know, just to be comfortable. Every guy hangs around the house like that. Right?

Right?

Right. So my grandparents were in town because it was Thanksgiving and they go to bed at 8. I hear a knock on the door and it’s my grandma. I take my hand out of my pants with the quickness (as the kids say), but sadly, an unintentional boner was now there.

“I’m going to bed,” my grandma said in her sweet, trusting voice. “Give me a hug, Matthew Evan!”

“How the hell am I going to get out of this one?” I thought.

“THAT’S RIGHT,” said God, watching me with a tub full of popcorn from his cloud. “HOW THE HELL WILL YOU GET OUT OF THIS ONE?”

I couldn’t just sit there and not give my grandma a hug, but I couldn’t hug her with a boner. It was one or the other, so I decided to hug my grandma. I tried to keep my distance, but she hugged me too close. Due to our height difference, my boner stabbed her in the stomach. Did she notice? No, of course not. She’s old and therefore slow-witted. Did I notice? Yes, and I could not bring myself to masturbate for a week. Well, two days. That’s almost a week.

“LOSER.”

Shut up, God.

I never beat the original Legend of Zelda

I couldn’t solve the final dungeon! I just didn’t get it! It saddens me to this day.

I have a large permanent scar on my ass

My cellmate, Ricardo, carved “MS-13” into my ass during my first night in Riker’s Island (I was shipped up there for a six months after I pushed my aunt down the steps). Ricardo turned out to be a nice guy and we still hang out on the outside. He feels terrible about the whole ass-carving thing, but I just laugh about it now. It hurt a lot at first, though.

I’m just messing around. The truth is I do indeed have a permanent scar on my ass, but it was carved there in a much dumber way. One morning in college, I woke up for class after falling asleep a mere three hours before. I was in a very bad way as I crawled to the shower in a zombie-like state. As I was showering in all my naked glory that only a lucky few have ever witnessed, I felt that I had to crouch down because I was simply so tired. As I put my head in my knees, wondering how the hell I was going to survive my boring 2-hour Narrative Scriptwriting class (don’t be fooled by the course title – the class was torture), I finally decided that crouching naked the shower was kind of creepy. I stood up and *SHING!*

JESUS FUCKING SHITEATING CHRIST! SOMETHING SLICED THE MEAT OF MY LEFT ASS CHEEK! MOTHER OF FUCK, WAS THERE A KILLER IN THE SHOWER LIKE IN PSYCHO?! Blood was pouring from my ass cheek! I turned around and I saw the culprit – the tub faucet! I was crouching so close to it that my ass was under it. When I stood up, my left ass cheek dug right in. It was like a cubic faucet head, too, so it had sharp corners.

It’s biding its time until the next victim hops in…

I touched my wound and it hurt like a bitch. When I looked at the hand that was applying pressure on my newly formed gash, it was covered in blood. My ass was sliced up good. I let the shower run on it for a while longer, but more time in the shower meant more blood possibly being smeared on the walls. I didn’t want my roommate to think that I murdered someone in there, although I had done that once before and easily got away with it. It was so easy. Jeez.

A professional artist’s rendition of my ass and scar

So now I had a large vertical scar down my left cheek. It was so big that a band-aid wouldn’t cover it. So I took a tissue, balled it up, and taped it to the wound using about three band-aids. I could barely sit down in class. Even worse, the scar never went away, I think. I know that it was still there last year. To tell the truth, I haven’t looked at my own ass in a while, but you ask nicely, maybe I’ll show you my ass scar. Maybe.

Wow, what a load off! I feel like I can breathe easier now. I’ll let you guys go with one last secret: Ian Valentine likes Brazilian men.

I didn’t say that the last secret was going to be about me.

Questions? Comments? Look good in yellow? E-mail Fishman347@yahoo.com

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