My name is Hubris the Great.
Last night, at my job at Burger King (having deigned to do manual labor for only employers bearing regal names), I was executing coup déjà lance with my mop, like Cyrano de Bergerac eviscerating Charles d’Assoucy’s small intestine while leaving intact the duodenum, when I was approached by a co-worker, or, for the sake of accuracy, one of my disciples. On his left pectoral major, was a company-issued moniker-placard that read “Larry,” but I have re-christened him “Timolous of Cyzicus” after one of Plato’s students at the Academy, though he prefers the abbreviated “Toc.”
“Hube,” said Toc, as animal grease coated his fleshy countenance, “whaddaya think about all this Charlie Sheen shit. A real whack-job, hah?”
I stayed my janitorial blade and withheld criticism of Toc’s lack of a subject to the predicate “a real whack-job.”
“Are you saying that Mr. Sheen is totally divorced from reality, Toc? Or should I rephrase the question to accommodate your limited worldview?”
“Hube, you don’t have to insult me. Just making conversation.”
“Okay, then sit at my feet and marvel at my powers of social perception. Here it is: I agree with many of the words coming from Mr. Sheen’s fetid-breathed mouth, but disagree that they should be tumbling helter-skelter from the same toxic orifice. He looks down upon the proletariat, the commonplace, the drones — a commendable worldview, I daresay, to which I adhere to with all the dedication of a Catholic to fish on Friday, or to, in your case, foul local beer on Sunday morning. People in general are nothing but glorified simians endowed with the ability to digest entire blocks of cliché from such one-dimensional minds like Dr. Phil, Mitt Romney and that buffoon who fixes up houses for undeserving lint and then cries…all the way to the bank, to borrow a witticism from Liberace. Of course, the Son of Martin is correct that mediocrity has no place diagnosing genius as bi-polar, and I applaud his perverse riposte of calling this so-called malady ‘bi-winning.’ Why, Toc?”
“Ah, because it was funny and may sell T-shirts?”
“Hmm, I am beginning to see how that Whopper-and-french-fry mind of yours works in all its elegant simplicity. Yes, there will be the trolls, the dunces, who line up to buy Navy chest-wear emblazoned with the catchphrase “Winning!” But listen, grasshopper: Gone are the eccentrics, the colorful persona, the outrageous cad! Alas, the morning talk show mannequins, the self-help gurus, with their life coach certifications from the back of a cereal box – none of whom has meditated on the classics, nor wrestled with the Theory of Relativity – yes, all these mildew-brained hacks have retold the story of the charismatic eccentric as someone “needing help,” of having some dopey syndrome that was invented by various conmen bent on becoming modern day oracles so to gain them a nice high-rise apartment in the fashionable part of Atlanta. So, bravo, Mr. Sheen for bringing the fight to these murky fiends, these obtuse, life-destroying purveyors of tripe.”
“Hube, you also said you disagree with Sheen. How so?”
“Were you not listening? What I disagree with is that this hero, this chaotic force bearing down on the American Numbskullery has no culture, no erudition, no depth to his fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants wisdom. If it is true that he has a twelve-thousand-year-old brain, then he should be quoting iconoclasts of yore, like Aristophanes, Erasmus, Oscar Wilde – heck, I would settle for Andy Rooney. Whereas I profess my troubadour love for my lovely Virago…”
“Is that the lady who picks you up after work and who looks like a worn-out biker whore?”
“What!” I thundered at this robo-clown, as I offered the tip of his nose the working end of my epee/mob. “Take that back, or suffer mutilation!”
“Sorry, man, sorry. That just slipped out. She seems like a nice lady.”
“Enough, Toc. I accept your abject apology…Now let me end by saying that Mr. Sheen is an obvious philistine, unworthy to represent those of us who are the true carriers of Tiger Blood, because his muses are two shallow sluts who would not know a Rembrandt from the stick-drawing made by a kid who calls his grandmother ‘Nana.’ This in contrast to my Virago who is home right now laboring over a paper for her Art History class at Bolsheviks Community College, a humble start, I admit, but my lady WILL attain the highest culture to match her supreme physical and emotional beauty…In short, Mr. Sheen is no Hubris the Great.”
Hubris The Great 