#974: I Was a Bit of a Jackass

RECORD STORE TALES #974: I Was a Bit of a Jackass

Part of my process, after breaking up with Radio Station Girl in 2003, was simply to explore new things.  Music, piercings, and movies.  Moving on, adapting, becoming a new me, and resurrecting parts of my old self as well.  The immature inner child that persists.  As kids, we weren’t bad boys, but we did get into mischief and play pranks.  I always felt that if we had access to a video camera back then, we could have been Tom Green before there was a Tom Green.  But we didn’t, and Tom Green was the real pioneer in that regard.  And he took things way further than we did.  Still, Green reminded me of me when I was younger.

It’s not a controversial statement to say that Jackass, particularly Bam Margera, owe a debt to Tom Green.  Green was pranking his parents before Margera was on MTV doing the same.  Where Green did it with a coy faux innocence, Margera’s version of the same was with manic violence.  Jackass turned everything up several notches.  As soon as a copy of Jackass: The Movie entered the store where I worked on used DVD, I grabbed one.  I was curious.

Soon I was hooked!

I could remember taking shopping carts for a ride when I was teenager.  Early teenager.  When Bob started working at the grocery store, he told me “Do you know how much those carts cost?  $1000 each.  So from now on we return them.”  Before that though…yes, we sure did give them a spin in parking lots.  Parking lots were empty on Sundays and you could do just about anything.  We never took serious tumbles like Johnny Knoxville and crew, but we did race them around a bit.  I could live vicariously through Bam, Steve-O, Knoxville, Ryan, Ehren, Dave, Pontius, Preston and Wee Man.  They could do the things I thought were funny but would never do myself!  I killed myself laughing when Johnny rented and destroyed the car at the smash-up derby, then refused to pay for the damage.  Just the absurdity of it all.  You know that everybody signed waivers and got MTV reimbursements after the fact, so all’s even-steven in the end.  In other words it’s OK to laugh.

Another reason I dove hard into Jackass:  girls that I thought were pretty cute seemed to really like them (especially Bam).  So if I was into Jackass, that was something I had in common with the cute punk and goth girls I liked.  I also took style pointers from the guys.  I had piercings and a couple tattoos, and I had one photo with curly blond hair that I thought looked just enough like Ryan Dunn.  I bought wristbands and shirts at Hot Topic and skate shops.  I dyed my hair frequently.  I looked the part.

Visiting my parents regularly was something I really enjoyed doing after moving out and getting my own place.  I liked to watch movies with them.  Rather, I enjoyed making them watch things of my choosing.  And so it happens that I tricked them into watching Jackass: The Movie with me.

They liked documentaries, so I told them that “Jackass is a documentary about stuntmen.”

I just re-watched the movie recently to refresh my memory for this story.  Calling it a documentary was a bit of a stretch, but calling it a documentary about stuntmen was really pushing it.  There are stunts, yes, but there was also poo, pee, puke, and bottle rockets firing out of Steve-O’s anus.

My mother was not impressed.  “I hated it!  I don’t like crude things,” she insists.

Jackass was indeed crude, with the climax being a prank involving Dunn sticking a toy car up his ass and then getting a hilarious reaction from an X-ray doctor.

“That kind of humour to me is not very intelligent,” says my mom, correctly.  It’s fact it’s quite anti-intelligent.  But that can also be escapism.  My mom didn’t see it that way.

I asked her which sketch she thought was the worst.  “The only one I can remember is the guy pooping in the toilet.”

Ah yes!  Dave England walked into a hardware store with a newspaper in hand, sat on one of the display toilets, and took a dump right there.  This is funny?  My mom didn’t think so.  But as kids, when we were dragged out into hardware stores by parents for (seemingly) hours on end, did we not sit on those toilets making farting sounds?  I bet we did.

That’s the side of me that Jackass appealed to.  The inner child, the immature side that still laughs when someone farts in a movie.  That’s OK.  What makes you laugh could be very different and that’s OK too!  I needed to get back to that a little bit, and rediscover my childish side after having my heart crushed by a Radio Station Girl.

Just don’t share this side with your parents.  Trust me, they won’t get it!

75 comments

        1. I’m not saying it for hip cred points or anything. I have no bias against them, I’ve quite literally never seen anything other than previews.

          Liked by 1 person

        3. Maybe passively no interest. I wouldn’t be so kind as to say active disinterest (oxymoron?), I just never explored. Would never say “I HAVE NO INTEREST” in a declarative way, just too many distractions in life, other media to consume, etc.

          I feel like I’ve been accumulating a rep as the forum record/movie snob, despite making me entrance reviewing Kix and having professed enjoying AxCx on several occasions. I gotta shed that. I hate hipsters as much as the next guy, probably more. I guess it’s because I like Lou Reed and R.E.M.

          Liked by 1 person

        4. Well if you ever decide one afternoon, “I need to see what happens if you attempt to make a snowcone out of your own pee and eat it,” then watch Jackass!

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        9. There must be something wrong with my brain. It can seemingly think up way more disgusting shit than anyone else I know.

          I guess A Serbian Film gives me a run for my money.

          Liked by 1 person

        11. I should send you this short story I wrote in high school. You’d probably rather listen to KK’s Priest for 24 hours than read it twice. It makes simple sodomy seem tame.

          Liked by 1 person

        19. Don’t tell him, but I’m gonna chase him to Ottawa so he gets stuck by either the truckers or the police there trampling elderly women on horseback!

          Liked by 1 person

        22. It wasn’t my pee though. My girlfriend at the time had a yeast infection. She pissed into a tube and I used it to ferment beer to mix in a snow cone. It felt very feminist.

          Liked by 1 person

        25. Hey, how’s the weather where you are right now? It’s 62 F here right now, but by tomorrow night it’s going to be 7 F and it will have snowed for close to 12 hours. It’s been windy as hell all day today and yesterday. Temperature changes like that are tornado catalysts. Was just curious what your mid-February looks like.

          Liked by 1 person

        26. It has been a brutal winter. It was -20 celcius the other morning. The snow has been coming down relentlessly. 20 more cm coming this Friday after a night of freezing rain. Yep, not looking forward to that commute.

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        27. It’s only snowed heavily once this winter here. I guess it makes up for last year when it was impossible to travel in the tundra for at least a week during a ridiculously prolonged snow disaster.

          Liked by 1 person

        35. It’ll all be worth it if you guys get your freedom back. At least Trudeau has succeeded in making the last two U.S. Presidents look slightly less awful by comparison. Slightly.

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        36. The truckers have cost us billions and they are certainly not fighting for me. They hate me because I’m pro LGBTQ and I have screenshots to prove it. They hate my grandmother because she’s 97 years old and “already had a good run”. They hate my friend who is a nurse. The truckers maybe should vote next time.

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        37. I guess I don’t know about the LGBT stuff, but I 100% support people standing up against bullshit mandates which have wrecked economies more than protesting truckers have. I don’t know what else they advocate, but I at least support that. Not any gay bashing though. What did they say to you anyway?

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        43. The man with the screaming brain. Can you imagine what that family tree would look like? Your dad would span two generations!

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        44. I don’t hate old people, but I don’t see the help in any of the mandates. The public health officials finally admitted cloth masks aren’t very effective, the shot does fuck all to prevent transmission (highest case numbers here by far were in the last few months after having the shots for over a year, and I got it from a fully vaxxed person who gave it to six other fully vaxxed people), and lockdowns at best just slow down the inevitable.

          I don’t think we’ll ever agree on the topic, I just don’t want you to think I’m a heartless bastard. I don’t like the governments seizing so much power they’ll never want to give back. And now they’re changing the definition of words. Way too Orwellian. I’ll leave the topic alone now though. So we can unite in a front against Harrison’s Stained Class opinion.

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        45. Well I respectfully disagree. I don’t think you’re heartless but I do think the majority of people in that convoy are pieces of shit. They say “kids have to be in school! Mental health!” Then they pull their kids out of school to sleep in a filthy truck for 3 weeks and using them as human shields. I’ve talked to enough of these guys to know that they do not care about me.

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        47. I know you do!

          Personally I don’t even care about the mandates but I think we need to be more cautious and watch developments in Denmark first. It’s this mob that I stand against. They broke the windows of a coffee shop flying the rainbow flag. They run with actual Nazis — we have a lot of them in Canada. They terrorize children. You should see the video of them screaming at the 17 year old kid to “go home to your own country.” I can’t support any of that.

          The mandates will be over soon anyway. Trudeau wouldn’t even be in power if all those truckers voted.

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        48. I may have an authority problem, if you hadn’t noticed!

          I may like to poke the bear sometimes too, if you hadn’t noticed!

          I can’t abide all the rioting shit or intimidation tactics on either side. My philosophy is just for people to politely leave me the fuck alone. I’ll do likewise. And we’re golden! A Lone Wolf is me.

          Liked by 1 person

        49. I’m happy to be left alone as well.

          They’re making arrests now so Ottawa should be cleared out by Monday. Cleaning up their mess will take much longer.

          It’s funny how all the American news calls it Ottowa! I believe I even have a Marillion tour shirt with that spelling.

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        51. I know eh?

          Watch an old comedy from the 80s starring Eugene Levy called The Canadian Conspiracy. I think it’s on Youtube. John Candy, Dave Thomas, Steve Martin, Anne Murray, William Shatner… amazing cast. Should be able to watch for free. I think you will get a lot of the jokes.

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      1. Well, sort of. I like a bit of intelligent laughter at time. Though at the moment I do hate laughter because after the wisdom tooth removal, it hurts to laugh or smile.

        Liked by 1 person

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  5. I’ve heard of the movie ‘Jackass,’ but I’ve never seen one clip of it and I don’t think I’ll get the humor, to be honest. But I admire how the film helped you relive your inner childhood, as I think that’s very important!

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    Reply

  6. I remember seeing the one where ROLLINS!! drove a truck offroad while a guy got a tattoo in the back. I knew guys in school who would’ve loved Jackass (and probably did, though I haven’t sen them in years), but it’s not my thing.

    Liked by 1 person

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