A Hobo's Mumble

The following text is a compilation of Dickie Kinglsey's show Unemployed. I'm sorry if you are trying to Google him. All of these are the work by Wangdagen, a Douban user, who fictionalized the character and wrote it originally in Chinese. So credit goes to him (or her). Make sure you're capable of recognizing the swearing words and knowing how to use them. Otherwise parental company would be recommended if you want to proceed to read:

THANK you. Thank you all. You see, I’m a loser. I have no job, no money, no date, no pet, nothing at all. And I don’t look good. I know. I’m overweight, and my taste for clothes sucks— take a look at the t-shirt on me! I don’t even want to screw myself. Here’s my advice on how to get rid of masturbation: grab your mobile phone, open the front camera, and your right hand will say, “fuck off! I won’t jerk you off at this motherfucker’s face!”

I’m not saying I’m the top loser amongst all the losers in all the world. I won’t even count myself as the biggest loser in this auditorium with you folks, because you’re a bunch of people who can’t even get laid on a Saturday night, and have nowhere to go but come here to listen this motherfucker bitching along. I wouldn’t waste my time like that. Why not lie on your couch, watch Netflix and jerk off? Or is it because you had done that for 6 days and didn’t realize until today, “Oh, I’m not some kind of Columbian gorilla only obsessed with my own genital. I need to go out to be a normal person.”

I’m not the biggest loser. I just fit that criterion of a perfect loser, who is from a normal family, with an average IQ and average physicality, who, through his own efforts, becomes the perfect loser—as perfect as he could—yes, that’s me. I’m losing so completely that I need to talk about me being a loser in front of you to make a living. My father is surely proud of me!

But unlike most of the American parents, my father never said that to me. You know, the very words “I’m proud of you”. Every father is supposed to tell his kid that at least once in his life because it was written into the Constitution, and the law says if you don’t say it you’ll be sentenced to death.

I have every reason to believe that this sentence has been written into the Constitution, for I have never seen a parent in an American movie who doesn’t tell his kid “I’m proud of you.”

Your kid’s team won the game, and all he did was just stand in the corner, holding his bat throughout the game. “I’m proud of you!”

Your kid was admitted to a college, which, with due respect, even a hippo could go to if it could afford it. “I’m proud of you!”

Your kid lost his job because he was stupid, so he sat at McDonald’s and whined in the phone telling you he had no money to pay the rent. “Remember,” you said, “no matter what happens, I’m always proud of you.” – proud of him for what? For his being able to call you?

I was watching a movie about family therapy on Pornhub the other day—yep, I have family issues. Why do you think I’m complaining in front of you that my dad doesn’t love me? Of course I have family issues. Anyway, in the movie, there is a father and his daughter, who loves wearing gym tights, and she’s happy. She tells her father that she got chosen by the school’s team—I just noticed someone in the seats smiled and nodded—yes, you, in the back seat with a baseball cap. You’ve seen that movie, too? Gross! Now everybody knows that you love watching father-and-daughter movies. Pray that your friends or colleagues are not here.

So in an American adult movie, a daughter tells her father that she got chosen by the school’s team, what will her father’s response be?—“I’m proud of you!”—and he is proud of her, so proud that… never mind. I’m not going there. Just so you know, what happens after that breaks all the family ethics. Sick as he is, that father doesn’t forget to say “I’m proud of you”, but my father never said that.

Because he is not that kind of person, who talks bullshit like “good job”, or“well done”, or “terrific”… no. To be clear, my father is not dumb. His vocabulary just has no place for that kind of shit. I’m not blaming him or anything. I guess his father never said those words to him, either. No hard feelings..

Anyway, did you ever play that game Word Relay when you were kids? One kid whispered something into another, who passed what he heard to the next, until the original “Julia’s got a beautiful puppy” ended up being “John raped his mom’s shoes”, and everyone had a good laugh about it. In my opinion, family education is just like that game. My grandfather whispered something to my father, and my father turned around, stepped close to my ear and said, “you’re a pile of self-important turd.”—How am I supposed to pass that to the next generation without hurting them? “You’re a pile of confident excrement”? That’s the best I could do.

Folks always say “You’ll end up being just like your parents”. Do not underestimate that statement. They are not just saying it. That’s a fucking prophecy, just like the one that “she will prick her finger with a spindle and die”—you will become your parents. My father never said a nice word, neither did I. I can’t praise others. When my ex was in her new skirt and asked me “How do I look?” I raked my brain before I finally said “You look alright.” Alright? That’s why she became my ex. Because my performance in bed had always been ALRIGHT.

I don’t know how my father got himself married. Maybe in his age, it was not that illegal to hit a girl with a bat and drag her to the basement and keep her there until she said “I do”.

Isn’t that clear that I’m a completely loser. I’m over 20, and I’m still trying to blame my original family for all the problems in my life. I don’t have a real job, because I didn’t get enough candies in my childhood; I fell to the ground the other day because when I was learning how to walk my father wasn’t there; I couldn’t find someone to sleep with because when I was five I lost my teddy bear. So when can I be a grown-up and come to realize that for all the problems in my life, it’s the fucking society to blame.

I was born in the 1990s, when people were allowed to become losers. Let me put it this way, in the 90s, the society and schools were teaching us to meet the losers’ criteria. The world had been established. There was not much left for this generation to do about. So they came up with the internet. That way we could stay at home and masturbate.

Now you could hardly hear folks talk negatively about the millennials. It’s not because the millennials are mature enough to outgrow all their shortcomings, but because we are too old to be targeted. We’re worthless. We’re outdated. They used to say the generation of X were selfish, and irresponsible. We still are selfish and irresponsible. But nobody gives a shit about us anymore. Where is the fucking limelight?

Of course I know where the limelight has gone. It’s on the stupid generation of Z now. So when did it come to me that I was old? It’s when I noticed unconsciously that I tended to put the adjective “stupid” before every one who was younger than me. How old are you? 20? I don’t know you but I know you’re stupid.

It takes a lot to accept the truth that you don’t belong to the youngest generation anymore. I don’t like talking to the young. My ears reject everything they say, it’s just a body reaction They might be talking about art, history or politics. But simply by the way how their lips move, I can tell they are saying “I want chocolate, chocolate, more chocolate.” Don’t take me wrong. I have no bad intention for young people. I simply hope from the bottom of my heart that they are still feeding on shit.

It’s so annoying to hear a young man complaining that he’s old. I’m sorry I’m doing exactly the same thing right in front of you. But, hey, I’m a fucking millennial. It’s embarrassing for a person to be stuck between 25 and 30 because statistically you’re still young, but truth is, we all know after that phase you’re pretty much dead.

When you’re over 25, you can tell that your body is obviously undergoing some changes. The moment you get up from bed, you joints crack. My plan is that I won’t hear those sounds until I’m 60. Nobody ever told me that those sounds were gonna last for fucking 50 years.

All the shit that you expected to see in other people now is all coming out of your body. Once I was in shower and I got a feeling that something—a lump or whatever—coming out of my anus. I quickly tucked it back inside. Anyway I searched “lump around anus” on Google and arrived at this conclusion: I got intestinal cancer and there was only 3 months left for me. But I was lucky, you know, ‘cause I had a talk with my friends—yes, straight guys do talk about their anus and it is quite normal—and they said they also had that lump. As a matter of fact every person who sits in front of the computer for 8 hours has that lump, which has got a name— “the lump of the millennials”.

I even started doing health checkup every year. Now that I’ve got no real job, I don’t have what you call “health insurance”. So if I’m diagnosed with some kind of shit, I won’t be able to pay. The checkup, for me, is no different than “take a look at the food in the fridge, see if they’ve expired”. If they have not, I’ll keep living. But if there is cancer which costs hundreds of thousands, then I’ll go home and kill myself. I promise you ‘cause I don’t think my life is worth that much money. Don’t give that “Rest in peace” shit.

I remember when I was in grade 4, elementary school, I was asked by my teacher to fill out a family information form. I wrote “hobo” under the category “Father’s Occupation”. I just picked that word, and I was eager to show off my vocab. Besides, my father was a hobo at that time. However, my teacher had a private talk with me for being honest. How would I know back then that in 15 years I’d also end up being a hobo? You’ll always become your parents.

I don’t see any bad in being a hobo. All my jobless father does everyday is sit on a couch and watch television, or play cards at his friend’s. My mother will bring breakfast to the bed every morning. That’s my dream life, no kidding. But now that I’ve managed to become a hobo, how come I’m not living the life my father has?

Wait, it just comes to me—perhaps it’s little bit too late—that my father lives a comfy life not because he’s a hobo but because he’s married to my mother. But you know what, it’s not as easy to get those girls of the X generation hooked. In the past, it’s like the man only needed to say “look at me, look at me, I’ve got a dick. Marry me!” and the girl went like “oh, I need that dick. Otherwise I won’t be able to live. I don’t care if he’s an alcoholic, or a gambler, or prone to violence. I’m gonna marry him!” It doesn’t work that way anymore—unless you’ve got a huge super dick. That’ll do.

Today is the Dark Age of love. I don’t know how to get to know people. By “get to know” I don’t mean walk into a pub and sit next to a girl and crack a few lousy jokes and go to bed with her—that kind of “get to know”. What I mean is for you to truly understand her and that she understands you.

But the problem is, that’s fucking boring! You won’t be able to meet the Mr. or Miss Right on your first date. So you have to tell everything about your life again and again until 8 million girls in the world get to know that once you shitted on your pants when you were a kid. Of course those 8 million girls don’t fall in love with you for that.

But I have to do that, ‘cause nobody would ever find love at first sight when they saw my face. If I want to be loved, I have to give everything I have, and be smart, be funny, and make the girl believe that I will never ever bore her. If there is such a girl for me, just like that princess in the RPG game waiting to be rescued—alright I admit it is gender discrimination, but I have to say the princess is an independent woman and she is fully capable of solving her own crisis. The only reason she is staying in that tower to be rescued is because that way guys at the low end could have a channel to promote themselves to the top.

Anyway, if I know there is such a girl for me, and that all I need to do is find her against all the odds and love her so that we can live happily ever after, then I’ll do everything I can to find her. But truth is I don’t know for sure if there is such a girl. Maybe there is, or maybe isn’t. If there is, possibilities are she could be 80 already, or she has met someone else, or she is living in a country I’ll never be. I don’t know where to find her, but my right hand is right here with me…

No wonder people need religion. When you’re poor and lonely, of course you’ll picture someone to love you. Even if that someone is the reason why you’re poor and lonely, you’ll still try to persuade yourself into believing that this is the way how that someone loves you. Or, you can blame another planet that’s light-years away for your problems, although that planet wouldn’t give a shit about your existence and your miserable life. But hey, whenever your life goes wrong, it’s all because that planet was half-way in that damn orbit, which is fucking unnecessary.

It doesn’t hurt to believe in something. I don’t believe in anything, except the 5-second rule for food. Well, on second thought, I’m not a firm believer. It all depends. If the food is really expensive, then the rule follows even if it’s dropped into the sewer. I suspect that one day when I’m so poor that the moment I pick that food up from the sewer and am about to put it into my mouth, my father would show up behind my back and say “I’m fucking proud of you!” thank you, thank you all for coming. I’m Dickie Kingsley, and I don’t love you. Farewell!