Hey, bro. Who's your daddy? Mama, don't let your children grow up to be journalists. Better to be a jerk.
True story, but names have been withheld to protect...well, you'll see: After the Democratic rally in Memorial Park on October 15, a woman in her seventies, who supported council candidate David Zaiser, came up to a Free Press staffer, and the following conversation took place:
Her: So you're with the Intelligencer?
Him: No, ma'am...The Free Press.
Her: Oh I see they sent you and not Woldow?
Him: Well, yes he's a columnist, not a reporter for us.
Her: He's a damn jerk, that's what he is. He writes lies and that's it. It's all made up, did you know that?
Him: Well, did you read the column he wrote on Dave Zaiser?
Her: Oh God, it made me sick. All lies it was.
Him: Um, you mean the positive column on Dave's campaign, where the headline was "Vote for Dave Zaiser"?
Her: Oh I didn't see that one. Why do they let him write that garbage every week?
Him: Well, I don't know, ma'am, you'd have to ask the editor about that. His name is Chris Barnes.
Her: Oh, I've heard of him. I like his columns.
Him: Well, he's a jerk as well, though.
Her: Oh, he is, huh? Must run in the family - I heard he's related to that Woldow guy.
Him: Yep, that's the rumor going around. Makes ya wonder, doesn't it?
Of course, Chris was the "Him", and we aren't really related. No kin of mine eats at Taco Bell four nights a week. But, appetite aside, could all jerks have a common ancestry? Six degrees of jerk separation? In today's world, we're everywhere! Jerk Power. Revenge of the Jerks. You're just a nobody if somebody hasn't called you a jerk. Or maybe a jerk-something.
"Hemingway was a jerk." - Harold Robbins, American novelist
"I'm just starting to scratch the surface of what really makes me happy and it's taken me a while to admit that acting like a little child and being a jerk and a punk is fun." - Leonardo DiCaprio
"A whole page of learned polysyllables may not convey as much as the statement that a certain woman is a bitch, or that a certain man is a jerk". - Eric Berne, founder of Transactional Analysis
"Anyone who dies with more than $1.15 to his name is a jerk" - Errol Flynn
"If a guy is over 25 percent jerk, he's in trouble. And Henry was 95 percent." - Chrysler Motors President Lee Iacocca on Henry Ford
"We don't devote enough scientific research to finding a cure for jerks." - Bill Watterson, author of the comic strip Calvin & Hobbes
"On Monday mornings I am dedicated to the proposition that all men are created jerks." - H. Allen Smith, American writer
"In less enlightened times, the best way to impress women was to own a hot car. But women wised up and realized it was better to buy their own hot cars so they wouldn't have to ride around with jerks." - Scott Adams, American cartoonist
"Hee, hee! I can be a jerk and no one can stop me!" - Homer Simpson
"Probably most of us have known at least one person who was 'born again' as a jerk". - Marcus Borg, Distinguished Professor of Religion and Culture, Oregon State University
"Better to be a jerk that knees than a knee that jerks." - William Safire, Pulitzer-Prize winning political columnist
Lou Grant: "Mary, I don't want you to take this wrong, but you're a jerk." Mary Richards: "How could I possibly take that wrong?" - Mary Tyler Moore Show, second season
Robot Number 5: "Jerk of the world, turkey, idiot, pain in the ass." - Short Circuit, PSO Productions, 1986
"I have summarized all of the rules for using The Internet into the following three guidelines: 1) Be considerate. 2) If you can't be considerate, at least don't be a jerk. 3) Don't let yourself be bothered by people who do not follow rules 1 and 2." - Harley Hahn, The Internet Complete Reference
"Fishing is a jerk on one end of a line, waiting for a jerk on the other end." - Old fishing joke
"e.e. cummings was a jerk, but he wrote really interesting poetry." - cummings biographer Christopher Sawyer-Laucanno
"Here in the third millennium, with our advances in telephone communication, it is possible to say, 'I am a jerk' to a thousand people at a time by forgetting to turn off your cell phone and having it ring during a performance of Death of a Salesman." - Steve Martin
"Harlan Ellison by many reports is a jerk, but he comes up with some incredible thoughts." - Jack Grant, Random Fate Weblog
George Costanza: "Yeah, well, the jerk store called, they're running out of you." - Seinfeld, season 3, 1992
"I've been a jerk all my life. My momma loves this jerk. My kids love this jerk. I'm going to be a jerk in a good way, though. I'm going to be a jerk to the other teams and just go out there and play basketball. I can do that." - Stephen Jackson, Indiana Pacers
My momma loves me too, even when I'm a jerk. In a good way.