Calling All Cranky Ones

Tribes.  Successful people have them.  

There’s the MAGA Trump cult.  There’s the sucked into the Gary V vortex folks.  The Godin-ites, the Musk-followers (Musk-ettes?), the OMG-I-JUST-SAW-A-YOUTUBER tweens and then of course, the Manson-ites.  

Now, why would I group in Manson followers with all those other folks?  I’m just pointing out a fact, that LOTS of different people have followers.  It’s a good thing and a bad thing.  Followers equal a tribe and a tribe is good thing, right?  Maybe.  SOMETIMES.  

But, let’s get to the point of it all.  I want a tribe.  I’m not going to be coy about it.  I’m going to be direct.  Yep, I want my own internet tribe.  I’m realistic about it.  I get that my initial tribe members might feel like me and one or two other slightly awkward people sitting in a dark room together, but still I’m going for it.  It’s my fantasy and I’m going to drown in it!  Yet, it’s not like you can do a call out for a tribe.  There’s no “Tribe Tinder”.  Plus, I’ve become a cranky beeyatch in my old age.  I’m this weird mix of an incredibly social person who loves people, talks to people all day and everywhere, mixed with a human that truly likes about two people.  My wife and my dogs.  Okay, one person and two, four-legged, furry beasts.  Alright, that’s a touch of an exaggeration too.  I like aboutfive people, but that’s semantics and we can argue about the actual numbers forever.  I’m going for a feeling here and the feeling is something like what follows.  I like to go out and talk to the masses.  Then I like to close down, get cranky and speak to the couple of folks that “get me”.  The ones who “get me” are going to be the CRANKY ONES.

Picture it like elementary school gym class.  You have to play kickball or some other inane game forced upon you by a half-cocked gym teacher, so you line up.  There’s the overly enthusiastic girl jock and the boy jock waiting to get picked, there’s the kid who downed a gallon of sugar and who just needs to run it all off before he shits himself, there’s the smart ones staring at the ground and just praying they don’t get hit in the face with the ball and then there’s the CRANKY ONE.  The kid with the “WTF” expression on his or her face night and day.  The one who can smell the booze on the teacher.  The one who seems to get the nuance of this middle class upbringing and sees right through the white picket fence to the world inside.  A world that is mainly made up of, “This shit ain’t right”.  

The cranky one with the discerning eye.  

The cranky one who is bitchy.

The cranky one who gets won over by a swift undercut of a punchline leveled onto a sack of steaming bullshit.

That’s the one I’d pick.

Now, I don’t mean that you bitch at everything like it’s sport because if you do, the real cranky ones don’t like you either.  A super bitchy person can’t sit there and enjoy a simple, shitty Madonna song because they’re too good for it.  In their own minds they’re too good for everything.  The cranky ones know that the Biebs, for example, is crap, but sometimes crap tastes good.  Sometimes the crap is caviar.  The real cranky ones know that when something hits a sweet spot, just right and just hard enough, well, it can relieve the crank for a bit.  It’s important to note that a cranky one is NOT just a dick.  A dick, is just a dick and it’s very hard to mistake one of those for anything else.  They are very clear in their intent.  A cranky one is irritated by both the dick and the dick’s victim, but for entirely different reasons.  Those are my peeps.

THE CRANKY ONES.  

And don’t you just love the name?

I thought about calling our crotchety group something else like the “cranky muse-lings,” but muse-ling sounded too much like Muesli, the Swiss German granola which leads to a beautifully hallowed out colon.  Plus, a muse-ling is also a teenage follower of the band, “Muse,” which made me go - KILL.ME.NOW.  KILL.ME.NOW being the most common phrase uttered by a true cranky one.  It’s like air for us.

Oh and side note, when a cranky one says “KILL.ME.NOW” they don’t usually mean suicide for themselves because why take such a beautiful crank out of an unjust world?  The KILL.ME.NOW phrase typically means, “Please, Overlord, kill everyone else around me for a brief nanosecond.  Give them all one simultaneous cyanide pill so that I can experience the millisecond of quiet that would exist in a world without stupidity.  And then, Overlord, please wake them all up so that I am not tried for a federal offense.”  

We could say, “KILL.THEM.NOW,” but only a stupid person would ever attach that much culpability to themselves in case the Overlord ever decides to make good on their wish.

You see, it’s much easier to say KILL.ME.NOW (and a far better alibi).

If you’re a true cranky one, you get it.

If you’re a true cranky one, I’m going to like you and you’re going to like me.  So, let this be our little introduction.  Let the crank begin.

If you’d like to sign on to be a true “cranky one,” you can do so here.