The problem with death threats is that you can’t elicit them. God knows I’ve tried. They have to come at you from left field, which so far they haven’t. So obviously I need to switch strategies. Not unlike a drug addict who has to keep increasing the dose to get the same high, or a Louis CK or Anthony Jeselnik who have to escalate the outrageousness to get the same laugh, I’ve been trying to up the offensiveness of my posts. But unlike Alex Jones, I’ve never posted content I couldn’t, and so wouldn’t, stand by. This has got to change. 

I’ve been hoping people will think I’m transphobic because I deny that trans women are women, or that I’m racist because I mock anti-racists, and so on. But relying on the stupidity of others has proven a bad bet. So I need to come out with something explicitly transphobic, or racist, or what have you. 

I find this difficult, because I don’t really understand transphobia or racism. By which I don’t mean I couldn’t unknowingly be transphobic or racist. Rather I mean I’m not sure what it is to be one of these things. Why would anyone be afraid of a transsexual? Why would anyone think one’s skin colour correlates with her reliability as a moral agent?

I’m not saying there couldn’t be good answers to these questions. I’m just fessing up that I don’t have these answers myself. And so I can’t express my transphobia or racism or what have you and at the same time keep a straight face. A comedian doesn’t have to keep a straight face. But a pundit does. I’ve practised in front of the mirror, but I can’t pull it off.

My wife suggests I try a little reverse psychology. “Try being as inoffensive as you can. As politically correct and woke as any of your students or colleagues.” Same problem. My voice gives me away.

So out of sheer desperation, I’ve just enrolled in a three week residential full immersion hatred course, being offered by an association-certified neo-Nazi white supremacy educational foundation, operated from a property just outside Eckville, Alberta. The brochure promises that, “By the end of the course you will hate all commies, fags, kikes, and niggers, or your money back.” Of course to collect on this guarantee I’d have to either a) still be “a commie, fag, kike, or nigger”, or else b) have become one. Which, given what we neo-Nazi white supremacists do to “commies, fags, kikes, and niggers”, is highly unlikely. So I figure, what have I got to lose?

So when you haven’t  heard from me for three weeks, that’s where I’ve been. When I come back online, let’s hope, for all our sakes, I’ll be worthy of something more than the usual rolling of the eyes and exasperated, “Oh Paul!”

Andrew Roman, a fellow blogger – and, I hope, now a friend – has kindly suggested I might be suffering from a Socrates complex. I’ve looked it up in the DSM-5 and he’s clearly right. Of course Socrates actually drank the hemlock, whereas the attention I’m so desperately craving would do neither me nor the world any good if I’m dead. So remember: It’s  death threats I’m looking for. My wife doesn’t want me dead until after our new puppy is more reliably house trained.

Categories: Humour

Tags: attention, dark, death threats, humor, Humour, offensive, solicit