The Hilarity of Failure

Another failed suicide attempt. Jimmy then sought counseling.

There are times were I look at other people in awe of their own stupidity and complete ignorance to the world around them. Daily I see people waltzing through life like a sleepwalker lost in their own kitchen. It's risky waking sleepwalkers but then again some of them may need a good dose of on-set epilepsy if it will wake them the fuck up.

I don't want to come off as insensitive though. I simply have no sympathy for those who aren't willing to help themselves. It's a vicious cruel world full of leeches and vermin who are looking to infest every inch of peace and tranquility you have worked so hard for.

If you can't tell I'm still recovering from my numerous encounters with the violent cockroaches that occupied my kitchen. PTSD for crummy Hollywood studios I suppose. But all that is behind me now. I was once one of the sheep that bah incessantly and are easily corralled, then I turned 12 and decided it was time to grow up.

I've definitely never considered myself a bully but have never missed an opportunity to have a good laugh at someone else's expense. Since I am someone who is constantly offering comedic material for those around me to laugh at, most of it coming from my many epic fails, I figured I could share a couple of my favorite stories of huge fuck-ups & fails that I have witnessed.

Of course names have been changed to protect those involved but as usual I'll give you the details how I saw them, in all their insanely ridiculous but unbelievably factual glory.

"Deaf Or Just Dumb?"

I was in Canada a few years ago working on Parliament Hill. A simple google search of Canadian Parliament will give you hours of scandalous reading on controversy and shadiness. What drew me to Canadian politics was their transparency and attempt at accountability for their elected officials. It was no shock to me during my time on The Hill that Canada's politicians were just as morbidly corrupt as ours but that there wasn't a constant dependence on deceiving the public.

The irony that I find magnificent in this story is that it is a wonderful example of having the obvious right in your face yet completely ignoring it.

We want to believe that our elected officials have our best interests in heart when deep down inside you know they are running high dollar whores in and out the door as fast as you can say "bail out" and ripping rails of cocaine on G4's that would make Keith Richards look like a girl scout.

One night in Ottawa I went out drinking with some of our country's most elite students that are all aspiring politicians, ambassadors and heads of state. I was the only one out of the group that was working for the news network when everyone else was positioning for future political hook-ups. As if they weren't already privileged enough.

I've drank all around the world and with many different groups of people from all backgrounds and all ages. But I've never met such a specific type of person than the type of person that wants to either get into 1.) Law or 2.) Politics that has a more hellacious thirst for alcohol and craziness.

My closest friend during my stay in Canada told me within minutes of meeting him that he would be the governor of Alabama and one day be a Congressman in our Nation's Capitol. Then he pinched the ass of some unsuspecting girl walking past and asked me if I wanted to smoke a cigarette with him.

I said yes and could barely contain my excitement for meeting such a person.

The first couple of nights we would go out and drink we were just like kids on Christmas Eve excited to meet another person that was just as much a political junkie as the other. We got hammered and screamed at each other about foreign policy and other issues.

The third night we went out we finally had the nerdiness out of our system and began to talk to girls. I met a tall brunette from Michigan right off the bat and completely lost track of my friend. We will call him Al.

Al came up to me and said that he had met some girl that was going to take him back to her place. He pointed her out from across the bar and she waved her hands around in a very strange manner of a greeting. She was cute. I said that's awesome and we should all do some shots together. He agreed and said to wait there while he went to get her. He didn't come back.

After awhile the girl I was with asked about my friend I was with. I had completely forgotten about him and started searching the bar for him. No sign. I went outside. No sign.

After a full 10 minutes of looking for my friend the search & rescue efforts were exhausted and I suggested to the Michigan girl we continue the search on the way back to my room.

Fast forward to the next morning. I'm standing in the bathroom filling up a container of water, eyes clinched shut and head pressed up against the mirror in agony. Then Al burst through the bathroom door (shared bathrooms. we were living in the dormitories of University of Ottawa) wearing the same clothes he was the night before.

Al: Mike James!!!

Me: Al?! Where did you go? I looked for you forever?

Al: I went home with a chick with a speech impediment.

Me: What?

Al: At least I went home with her. I didn't wake up with her.

Me: That chick that waved at me? That's the last time I saw you.

Al: Yea that chick. But it didn't go so well dude.

Me: What happened?

Al: Well I had a hard time understanding what she was saying because of her speech impediment. It was really pissing me off because I hate asking people to repeat themselves.

Me: Wait a minute dude...

Al: Yea so I ordered those shots and you were all about that girl so I just took yours. I followed her out to smoke a cigarette after that.

Me: By any chance did you actually ask her if she wanted that cigarette....or ask her any questions for that matter?

Al: What? No. Your the fucking journalist with the questions. Jesus, you are all the same!

Me: Just go on dude...

Al: Well I walk back with her to her house and we are at her door. I go to kiss her and she starts talking all this gibberish again. Now I'm pissed.

Me: Oh please don't tell me....

Al: Oh no Mike James you would of been proud of me. I gave that cock tease a lesson for leading me on like that. I let her have it man. I gave her an ear full for every guy that has been toyed with like that. Then I stormed off and bought a pint of Canadian Mist. Woke up in front of an office building a few blocks away.

Me: This pains me to say but did you ever think that maybe she was deaf?

Al: As in a zombie?

Me: No, as in she can't hear.

Al: Ohhhhhhhh shit Mike James. I think you might be right.

FAIL.

"Job Interview"

I had a buddy in college, let's call him Carlos, who was an elementary education major. There was one big problem with his career choice. He hated kids. Despised kids. He loathed everything about kids and made it very apparent that his skin curdled at the smell of children.

Nonetheless he stuck with his choice and obviously had lots of trouble with it. He would be routinely reprimanded for swearing at his students and calling them names they hadn't even learned yet.

Can't say he didn't teach them anything I guess.

Anyway my buddy Carlos was a boozer and had a genuine love of specific pharmaceuticals. Truly a model influence on our youth. So, he decided one day the class room wasn't where he was making a difference. I then asked him what happened when you threw something up in the air. His answer hinted at the idea gravity so I recognized he was experiencing a moment of clarity.

He believed his calling was in a youth center. Coaching, helping and aiding youths in need. Warn them about going down the wrong path. It was touching really. Until he told me about his job interview with the Jewish Children's Refuge of Indianapolis.

He told it in great detail.

His interview he told me was a two-parter. First a series of standard questions with the supervisor to make sure you aren't a psycho and second was a physical test. My friend Carlos had recently decided to quit smoking cigarettes to go with his new focus on the children and was taking a medication that completely eliminated the want or need for nicotine but left very inconvenient side effects. One being that if the person taking the medication did any physical activity whatsoever one would thus become violently ill. I will emphasis violently ill as in projectile vomiting.

Carlos being a charming and good looking individual had no problem with the first part of the interview. They were completely sold they were about to hire a very Jewish, very wholesome young man that wanted to aid in the prospering of young minds.

Carlos had no idea the second part of the test was a life guard certification course and he would be required to swim many laps in the pool very fast. He hadn't anticipated having to reveal the many tattoos that covered his body. One of which was a big black Gothic cross on his chest. This is something that is not exactly common among Jewish people so you wouldn't be surprised to hear that this nice old Rabi that was timing him was pretty upset when Carlos took off his shirt.

75 timed laps would be hard for anyone to do. It would be impossible to do if you were being eye balled by many sets of disapproving parents, hung over, on a certain medication that warned of projectile vomiting if taken under any physical activity and most importantly if you've never met angry Rabi or a happy Rabi for that matter.

On the second lap of Carlo's swim test he began to puke. Kids with floaties around their arms cried and stretched their little arms to their parents while my friends' yack floated down stream. A panic ensued and it only worsened when he fell getting out of the pool and busted his head open running to a trash can. Blood spewed down his tattooed and offensively scrawny frame.

He explained to me with tears in his eyes, of laughter not remorse mind you, how the Rabi told him to sit there and bleed and puke in the trash can while they taped the contaminated area off, evacuated the people inside and told Carlos to get the fuck out of their youth center as soon as the lands keeper was able to stretch a hose around to the pool.

As far as I know Carlos no longer works with children.

FAIL.

I'll return with more stories this week.

"Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes." -Oscar Wilde

With Love & Respect,

Mike James