AS A TARGET OF BULLIES most of my high school years, I have grown up as a reasonably ‘controlled’ adult (I have a veeeeeery long, veeeeeery slow-burning fuse to my once hair-trigger temper), constitutionally and philosophically anti-violence instigation (versus the necessity of using violence in defense), but quite capable of taking care of myself. (Of course, being a 200-pound 6-footer tends to dissuade most people from getting in my face.) 1
Nonetheless, due to the bullying, I have almost zero tolerance for bullies, wherever and whenever I see them. Upon hearing of the Columbine High School massacre in 1999, I did not immediately assume the shooters were bullies or that they were stoners or that they were victims of depression or that they were hypnotized by backward masked Satanic messages on their heavy metal albums.
No, upon hearing of the Columbine High School massacre I turned to Berni and said, “Wanna bet they were two loners who were bullied every day?”
Of course, she did not take the bet.
Which brings me to a video that showed up as part of my daily email from Upworthy and addresses two things: human beings who grow up with someone on the inside who doesn’t look like the someone on the outside, and bullying. This video is titled “This kid’s dad is just as bad as the bullies at school until he makes me smile at the end.”
I was moved by the brief story and forwarded it to all my email contacts and I also posted it on my Facebook pages and those of family and friends. While showing it to Berni later in the day, a thought came to me: the producers of this four-minute video should pull it from distribution and find a writer to turn this into a ninety-minute movie. I can see this as an attention-getter, although not necessarily a blockbuster.
But as a film addressing the topics of transgender children, harassment and bullying in schools, and the need for the support of one’s parents against the bullying regardless of the reasons would grab not only the public’s attention but also that of the Academy Award voters. 2
Finally, I have also posted the above on my Rather Rare Records site but with an additional section on Hollysiz, the singer whose song The Light accompanies the video above. It is titled “fads and hollyliz let the light come through.”
FOOTNOTES:
1 Notice that I said “a” target of bullies, not “the” target. That’s because while the victim of bullying feels very much alone when picked on, bullies rarely pick on just one kid or person. No, they are much more egalitarian, usually having several if not many targets. As Teddy Roosevelt might have said, “Bully for them!”
2 Despite the fact that the actor who plays the father in the video resembles none other than everyone’s favorite physicist Dr. Sheldon Cooper, the first thought for the role of the bullying father in my projected movie was Brad Pitt, but any suitably ‘male’ actor would do. . .
Mystically liberal Virgo enjoys long walks alone in the city at night in the rain with an umbrella and a flask of 10-year-old Laphroaig who strives to live by the maxim, “It ain’t what you know that gets you into trouble; it’s what you know that just ain’t so.
I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn, and a college dropout (twice!). Occupationally, I have been a bartender, jewelry engraver, bouncer, landscape artist, and FEMA crew chief following the Great Flood of ’72 (and that was a job that I should never, ever have left).
I am also the final author of the original O’Sullivan Woodside price guides for record collectors and the original author of the Goldmine price guides for record collectors. As such, I was often referred to as the Price Guide Guru, and—as everyone should know—it behooves one to heed the words of a guru. (Unless, of course, you’re the Beatles.)