The D-Bag: A career in (baffling) details

Recently I asked you all to put forward submissions to Right This Blog! With that in mind please welcome today's guest post from Mark H.

"History is written by the victors..." Attributed to Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill, we know him as the steadying hand of British war-time politicians, a quotable man of the people whose indomitable spirit and embodiment of the English Stiff Upper Lip has left him revered as not a man, but an icon. But there is something else to Churchill. He was an a**hole.

And as such, it pains me, as an admitted a**hole, to correct him.

No, Winston, in this case, blog history will not be written by the victor. It is to be written by the a**hole.

My name is Mark. And I am a finalist of Simon Sweetman's "Right This Blog" 2012. My topic: the mental workings of an a**hole on the internet.

"Mark," I hear you ask, "how is it that, on our daily music blog, you have rudely lifted the needle of our music player, stood above it, and taken an almighty dump all over it with this misanthropic, self-important ranting?"

First off, shut up, I'm trying to talk.

Second, I will tell you. I estimate it was around a month ago now, sitting in my office cubicle, the stink of a Marlboro light being intertwined with what must have been my third can of Monster for the day, I trolled Stuff for the something-th time, and noticed a title that, in comparison to the alternatives about cats in trees and Sally f**king Ridge, leapt and spoke at me like a meth-addled street preacher.

OASIS: LOOKING BACK IN ANGER

Some exposition: I like Oasis. I stand by my opinion that every album has at least one ear-worm that validates their spot as one of the premier bands of the last 30 years. I am not a rabid, slavering fan who will throw Morning Glory on at a party and play it until you like it. But if there is one thing you should know about an a**hole, it is that you can't not like what they like.

Sweetman committed that most cardinal of sins: HE HAD AN OPINION ON THE INTERNET.

My stomach churned with every sentence I read. I heard a disturbance in the force that screamed at me with the power of one thousand beginning guitarists butchering Wonderwall. God called to me with righteous voice and furious anger. The Sign of the A**hole aligned in the Southern Sky and manipulated me to bring the pain in the most furious, damaging way that I could with the weapons the good Lord saw to befit me with.

I replied:

Mark H   #171   10:37 am Apr 02 2012
I'd get wound up by this if it wasn't the same old "I hate everything people like" horse$#!t week after week.

In the 3.30pm haze of Monday-induced brain-halt, I replied with all the vitriol my caffeine- and work-addled brain could attack with.

At the time, my smug-a**hole meter went off the charts. I was Jack's Smirking Revenge. I was the big kid asking the poor child, "Why are you hitting yourself? Why are you hitting yourself?" I was as furiously annoying as that gurning clown on those Mantrol ads.

I was wrong. Man that was a limp-wristed comment.

I am going to give you a few seconds to recover from squirming uncomfortably at how naff that was, because it gets worse...

Riding the wave of self-righteous dickishness, I wasted no time in commenting on the next blog, titled Most Influential Album of the Past 25 Years. Oh man, Sweetman, you better call a vet for this puppy, cos it was SICK:

Mark H   #42   12:59 pm Apr 02 2012
Oasis - What's the Story (Morning Glory).
Come at me, Sweetman.

You see what I did Sweetman? Not only did I TOTALLY own you with that OH SO WITTY choice of album, I combined it with a TOTALLY bad-ass Jersey Shore reference.

(Writer's note: I am many things. A**holish, as you knew coming into this. Not as funny as I want to be, as you have learnt. My GF tells me I'm a snorer, which I maintain is hereditary and therefore Dad's fault. But I do not, cannot, and will not, so help me God, watch Jersey Shore. You can crucify me for many things, but that's not one.)

Only in the cold light of a productive workplace Friday, I can see what you do. That comment was a**holish - but not in the cool, "Oh man that dude is SUCH a badass" a**hole. No, that was a**holish in the Walter Peck from Ghostbusters way.

I'm not proud of it, which brings me to why you are potentially still reading this twaddle.

I clicked on the Right This Blog entry during a placid Saturday at my GF's parents' house, expecting a chance to unleash vitriol in between enjoying the sun and complimenting the GF's muffins (get your mind out of the gutter). Expecting a chance to hit the hat-trick of horse-sh*t I so desperately wanted, I instead got my ass kicked so hard that my future kids will say "ouch":

Sweetman likes TISM.

This means nothing to you, but I was a young, skinny streak living in Geelong, Australia, during my teenage years. This was in a time when not listening to Limp Bizkit clearly outed you as any number of teen slurs.

TISM were my escape. The lyrical genius of (He'll Never Be An) Old Man River. Defecate On My Face, the only song to ever rhyme "Warsaw pact" with "Hitler's digestive tract". The infectious catchiness of Anarchy Means Crossing When It Says Don't Cross. Look up, if you can, TISM's shortest ever gig on YouTube. These guys were amongst my a**hole heroes, perhaps second to my all time hero, Bill Hicks. (Incidentally, Bill, if you can see this from wherever you are, I am so so sorry for what I am doing to comedy...)

Which brings me, in less than 1000 words to this point, why this is on your screen.

As brilliant as they were to the few of us who knew them, TISM were not a well-known band outside Australia. Most important, they knew a**hole bands have a**hole fans. So when I realised that this blogger, who had come so close to a third helping of the Technicolor bollocks known as my blog comments, not only knew of but LIKED something I liked, I had to concede - maybe, in my whole "Same three albums in the car, liking Freebird un-ironically, if it's not from the 90s it's not on my player" experience, I did not know more than someone who wrote about something for a living.

From Sweetman's  blog announcing the Right This Blog winners:

I'd also like to see the guest-blogs from #57 Mark H who said "I feel after reading this I should apologise for prior ****ishness on your blog - particularly after noticing the TISM blog I concede you know your oats. Ergo the only real blog I can touch on is being a d-bag in blog comments". Please write that Mark H.

Here I stand, Sweetman. In front of you, your readers, my parents (who upon reading this will petition for a word stronger than "shame" to be entered into the Oxford Dictionary), you have that blog.

I am prepared to be pilloried, laughed at, not with, to be shown up to perhaps not have the answers to the world's problem, and maybe even be called a slightly overweight, shaved head toolbox. And, yes, to announce that MAYBE Oasis aren't as good as we all remember

And to that I will nod, stand with my back straight, and announce with heart and voice:

At least they're not Blur...