You're Too Old to Rule the World

CHORUS

Of course you never wanted to improve society

Never been so stressed that you questioned sobriety

Got sick at others’ happiness, you had to hurl

You’re too old to rule the world!

 

VERSE 1

You shit on my youth, yet every woman is your mother

Kick your kids out the door, yet you want to be smothered

The room in your nursing home is like a prison cell

Because the family you fucked wishes you were in hell

 

CHORUS

Of course you never wanted to improve society

Never been so stressed that you questioned sobriety

Got sick at others’ happiness, you had to hurl

You’re too old to rule the world!

 

VERSE 2

The world is a different place than centuries ago

If you studied history, then you already know

That we can’t go back to the days of torture

The only personality traits were following orders

You yearn for the past, because you would have thrived

In a country where the have-nots could be unalived

For looking at you funny or saying hi to your honey

For even dreaming of the days of disposable money

 

CHORUS

Of course you never wanted to improve society

Never been so stressed that you questioned sobriety

Got sick at others’ happiness, you had to hurl

You’re too old to rule the world!

 

BRIDGE

It was never about gray hair or sagging tits and skin

It was about all the good shit you considered a sin

If someone smiles too much or gets the love bug

You choke the life out of them with a grip so snug

You do it long enough and you become so smug

‘Cause bigotry and rage are more addictive than a drug

Get a little bit of power and you stomp on all the flowers

We’re keeping our bladders full for your final hour

 

OUTRO

You’re too old to rule the world!

Keep your country’s flag all furled!

You’re too old to fuck the young!

That’s why these lyrics must be sung!

Monuments of Cringe

There are certain parts of your past where you should not plant your flagpole. There are certain hills you don’t want to die on. There are certain dumpster fires in your life that will burn you so badly that your ashes will blow away like a fart in the wind. The other day I discovered one of mine that I’m probably going to regret sharing with the world. I signed up for a Letterboxd account so that I could have a place to post my movie reviews. One of those reviews was for the 1985 film adaptation of Clue. I wrote this review when I was thirty years old, so I should have been mature enough to not go through with this horrible shit. But in this review, I…um…I, uh…laughed at Miss Scarlet’s “fruit” joke about Mr. Green (who’s gay) and I…suggested that it’s okay to ogle Yvette the Maid before you realize what she looks like now that she’s older.

That Clue review was what I like to call a Monument of Cringe, of which I have thousands of all over the internet. I read what I wrote and I cringed in disgust. My face was the color of zerg piss. My body shivered like someone dropped a toaster in my bathtub. My insides melted into whale slurry at the thought of someone eventually finding this review and broadcasting it out the world. And then the internet celebrates my past mistake with the hashtag “Garrison Kelly Is Over Party”, although my writing career won’t be derailed because I never went far to begin with. I’m grateful to have a small audience. But what if it grows overnight and they wade through this museum of cringe together? All of my embarrassment broadcast for the world to see. Hell, I probably said some embarrassing shit in this essay right now that I’ll get raked over the coals because of.

So what do you do when you realize that you have Monuments of Cringe all over the internet? What do you do when you realize your own published books are Stonehenges of Cringe? What do you do when you realize you built an entire legacy out of being disgusting and horrible in the way you’ve written? Nothing. You don’t delete your entire social media presence. You don’t pull your books off the shelves. If you must apologize to your audience, do so in a genuine and heartfelt way. Don’t make excuses. Remind your audience that they deserve better behavior from someone they look up to. And when you promise to keep growing, keep that promise and be the best version of yourself that you can be.

Because the truth is, a lot of art from the past doesn’t age well. Remember Ace Ventura: Pet Detective? Remember how the audience hee-hawed when they discovered that Einhorn had a boner in her underwear? Well, if you’ve made any effort to unlearn that behavior, you’ll see that transphobia is more harmful than funny and should therefore stay out of comedy forever. Remember all those jokes you heard from Boomer comedians about how much they hate their wives? Remember when the ultra-fat dinner guest ate the “wafer-thin mint” in Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life and then exploded all over the restaurant? Do you know why these things and many other pieces of media are now considered Monuments of Cringe? Because we’re (hopefully) learning more about the world around us. The more we learn, the more we apply it. And the more we apply it and grow into better people, the less likely we are to hold onto piss-poor nostalgia. That’s how life works: it progresses into the future.

I’ve decided after spiraling into disgust at my own past, I’m going to keep my Monuments of Cringe up. Not only do I have so many of them out there that I can’t get rid of them all, but I continue to create them in the present day and there will come a time when they age badly too. Learning to be a better person isn’t something that stops happening when you get to a certain point. It keeps going and going until the day you’re lowered into a wooden box with RIP scrawled across it. You can’t change the past no matter how hard you try. Yes, people will willingly see the ugliest parts of you before they see the best. But for every zergling and goblin that eats you alive, there are even more people who love you. You have to go out of your way to find them, but love is there if you look for it. Hell, there are people who still love J.K. Rowling even though she’s a transphobic bastard. There’s hope for you yet if you have even half the number of Monuments of Cringe that I do.

Perfection is a myth. Everybody has something they’re not proud of. Those who work on atoning for their worst behavior will successfully do so. Those who can’t admit it when they’ve fucked up? Well, let’s just say the over party will be complete with a disco ball and a bowl full of cheese dip. I’m telling you all now that if you happen to stumble upon my Monuments of Cringe and you think the worst of me, I apologize with all of my heart. If it’s years after the fact and another person finds them, I’ll apologize again. And if the future continues to roll on and I get called out for it again, I’ll apologize again. And again. And again. And again. While it is true that you can’t please everybody, you should at least try to be a halfway decent person even if perfection is indeed a myth. You may feel like you’re being looked at under a microscope. I do too sometimes. But if you think you feel alone, try being in the shoes of someone you’ve disenfranchised with your worst behavior.

But if you must hold an over party in my name, at least bring refreshments. Bring lots of Diet Coke. Bring enough pizzas to touch the ceiling. Bring enough bags of potato chips to give me the heart attack you’ve always wanted me to have. While I am sorry for every horrible thing I’ve said over my lifetime, I do indeed have a life to live. Will I live it with you? Will we eat potato chips together and dip them in a wading pool full of sour cream? Will we shove giant handfuls of cake in our mouths and talk about the world together (not with our mouths full, of course)? When I’m done atoning for my sins, I want to party with all of you. The Garrison Kelly over party has a conga line that I’ll gladly lead. Let’s party like it’s…a year that hopefully aged better than whatever god awful nonsense the 80’s and 90’s were. But if you ask me, I’ve erected more Monuments of Cringe in the 2000’s than at any point in my career. Remember Deus Shadowheart and Dr. Scott Cain? No? Good, let’s keep it that way.

Bitter Old Man

VERSE 1

The good old days are never coming back

So why do you keep going on the attack?

Technophobic rants don’t stand a chance

Nor millennial bashing and budget slashing

The young will inherit this mother earth

No sense in letting your teary eyes burst

Why all the rage over somebody’s age?

Progression is natural, so is worldwide change

CHORUS

Bitter old man! X4

VERSE 2

Fork over the keys to your corporation

Broadcast it on every cable news station

Life is short and nothing lasts forever

Life washes away in this rainy weather

You can’t blame everything on the young

So keep ageist vitriol off of your tongue

Scream any louder and you’ll pop a lung

Your radio hits will forever be unsung

CHORUS

Bitter old man! X4

BRIDGE

We are the rebels, we are the warriors

We shout it down every single corridor

You can’t keep us down however you try

You’ve got shit running down your thigh

VERSE 3

We open our email and eat our kale

Cheer when bankers get put in jail

Save the earth for the very last whale

No mega power is too big to fail

Stereotypes, they’re your only hype

You think we’re easy pickings so ripe

Call us snowflakes, say our news is fake

Little do you know this world is ours to take

CHORUS

Bitter old man! X4

No More

Your macho bullshit doesn’t work anymore

Check your massive ego at the front door

Before you tell anybody to suck it up

Take your own advice, then shut it up

The twentieth century is gone forever

The day you’ll get it back is fucking never

No more beatings with a leather strap

No more secretaries sitting on your lap

No more black people doing your chores

No more Indians getting killed in wars

No more drill instructors shouting in ears

No more suppressing our flooding tears

You can’t blame it all on a whole generation

Unless you yearn for the days of segregation

Unless you’re living in the Middle Ages

Unless cave paintings are your only pages

Self-esteem is what we need to survive

Happiness is what makes us feel alive

Just because you’re dead on the inside

Doesn’t mean you have to tan our hides

Just because you can’t use a computer

Doesn’t mean you can stop the future

If you’re really that angry and bitter

Maybe I should hire you a babysitter

Maybe that’s why your kind wears diapers

Not because you’ve eaten too much fiber

No more bigotry, no more agony

No more screaming, no more insanity!

Ground Control to Uncle Tom

(A parody of millennials who bash their own generation in the style of “Space Oddity” by David Bowie.)

Ground Control to Uncle Tom

Ground Control to Uncle Tom

Take your Viagra and put your Depends on

Ground Control to Uncle Tom

Commencing aging, glasses on

Check your prostate, and may grandma be with you

This is Ground Control to Uncle Tom

You’re inciting ageist hate

And the youngsters want to know whose loafers you wear

Now it’s time to leave the comfort of your rocking chair

This is Uncle Tom to Ground Control

I’m slipping on the floor

And I’m dizzy in a most peculiar way

And my head is in the clouds every day

For here

I am eating from a tin can

Disconnected from the world

Millennials are here

You can do nothing, my dear

I’m out of touch by a hundred thousand miles

I’m feeling very ill

And I think my scooter knows which way to go

Tell my grandkids I love them very much

They know

Ground Control to Uncle Tom

Your hearing aid’s dead, there’s something wrong

Can you hear me Uncle Tom?

Can you hear me Uncle Tom?

Can you hear me Uncle Tom?

Can you hear?

I am eating from a tin can

Disconnected from the world

Millennials are here

You can do nothing, my dear