if there's one thing in this world that's going to win you loving attention from sweet bitches - and probably we can agree on at least that much - it's false modesty. nobody likes your self-loathing routine, but no one wants to hear about your actual achievements either, because very few people really achieve anything at all. why rub it in? it's like that time you whipped out your ,,,, at the office christmas party. please! it's christmas. oh christ, it is most definitely christmas, and christmas is no time for you to whip your ,,,, out.
so let's talk false modesty. there's a right way and wrong way to do everything. the wrong way sometimes involves hate:
1) wrong: "god, i hate that so many people are stupider than me."
sometimes it involves dog pills for cancer.
2) wrong: "mom, you forgot to give Hopalong his cancer pills and now he's turning purple! god, i hate that so many people are stupider than me."
elton john occasionally figures in.
3) wrong: "this old music is so great but that washed up hag hasn't done anything in ages! i hate that so many english people are stupider than me."
(we are excited by the prospect that elton john, in a state of gin-soaked self-loathing, will go over to david bowie's house, log into the internet, and google for "elton john washed up hag" and end up at this page. hi elton! you've got to admit the old stuff had a verve that "candle in the depressing commercial wind" somehow lacks, old bean.)
so what do you do when you want to get shit straight? how do you maneuver the nightclub sitch such that those sweet bitches out on the dance floor - shaking that thing and doing that other thing - wanna get all on it? maybe several of them at a time. you put siouxsie and the banshees on the stereo, maybe it all works out. but how, HOW?
back to the numbers. first you can try to draw attention from your greatness.
1) right: "you can get herpes from pretty much anyone these days, even from toilet seats and bad air circulation on planes. you shouldn't haul off blaming your sister. and anyway you can always keep that detail to yourself. that...slut."
compare yourself unfavourably to great figures from history.
2) right: "now, a week ago i was your equal here at SpumCo, but now i'm your supervisor, and my first budget-cutting act, by order of my boot-licking boss, is to can your ass with some astounding quickness. i've risen fast, yes, and i don't deserve it. but comfort yourself, dave: at least i don't yet have as much power as hitler. you think about that, ok? have your desk cleared by lunch."
bring history and anthropology - the weight of learning - into the situation.
3) right: "the important thing isn't my curve-breaking A+ average and your measly C-, it's the fact that we've both overcome serious racial handicaps to get to this point."
if you're not getting it yet someone should kick your fat stupid bespectacled ass, because sometimes, in the game of getting shit straight, in the game of fixing what's wrong with you...sometimes it's your ass that needs the attention.
(we're still picturing bowie lifting elton's hands off the keyboard. tears stain bowie's paper skin, mirrored in the weeping queen's own wizened eyes. "you're going to be all right, elton," he whispers. "it's only the internet, luv. it's only the fucking internet." fade to black. A FIXINGYOU.COM PRODUCTION flashes on the screen. cue "rocket man" on the soundtrack.)
