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Bad Michael | Jul 11 2002

Oblivio is no longer the #1 Google search result for the word motherfucker. That honor now belongs to the New York band Motherfucker, which I am deliberating not linking to anymore, for Oblivious reasons. As of this writing, my original Motherfucker piece appears second, followed by my follow-up piece, Mofo, which is third.

I am depressed.

It is interesting that I am depressed, because just two months ago the last thing I cared about was where Oblivio stood in the Google rankings for the word motherfucker, or for any word for that matter, with the possible exception of the word Oblivio, which I expect to lead straight to my site (“Did you mean: Oblivion”) for as long as I write it.

All I can say is, this is bad news. Nearly everyone I know knows that Oblivio is (or was! “this terrible was,” as Thomas Bernhard says) the #1 search result for motherfucker. Even my mother knows. And as I mentioned in Mofo, there’s no word I’d rather be linked to. So as crazy as it sounds, this search result has come to feel like something I possess. And as with all possessions, or all that matter, I wish to preserve and protect it for as long as I can. For forever, if possible. It is mine, you see; I earned it. And now some soiled band of perverts has stolen it from me.

*

Walking up the block to buy bananas and soy milk, I did a quick mental inventory of the things I own. There isn’t much in the usual sense, for I’m not a “thing” person, believing or rather feeling that things come at a price—a psychic price, that is. I prefer to have fewer things—as few as possible, really—so as to leave room, as I think of it, for my thoughts.

Of the things in my shoebox apartment—a bed, a desk, two chairs, two computers, a printer, scanner, and maybe twenty books—which actually matter to me? None. What about the files; is there anything in the files that matters? Yes, some photos, although not to the point that I would mourn their loss; photos are a crude stand-in for memory.

Oblivio matters to me, and not only because of the pieces I’ve written and archived here. It matters because of the possibility it represents. A staggering (to me) number of people read the site each day, many of whom are not my mother, which means that if I manage to write things, those things will be read—and nearly instantly! It’s fucking nuts, a goddamn miracle, although as is often the case, I’ve adjusted to it and even come to expect it, which I’ll be the first to admit is sad. However, if the site were taken from me, I’d be crushed. Which is interesting because the other significant possession I thought of on my way to the produce store was me, Michael Barrish. The connection to Oblivio should be obvious, as should the connection to this silly search result business. These things matter to me because they represent me. This is particularly true of Oblivio, which from the beginning I conceived as an extended self-portrait.

I was kidding when I said I’m depressed. I’m not really depressed. Although, yes, I’ve definitely enjoyed being #1 for motherfucker. As the story goes, I created this site largely to have the freedom to write what I wanted without fear of offending my business clients, for whom I developed a motherfuckerless alternative. And then in an almost too beautiful twist, Google annointed Oblivio the top motherfucker destination on the web. What’s not to love about that? Still, the whole thing means very little to me. Seriously. Well, just so long as Oblivio remains ranked above the page where you can listen to a calm, possibly sedated man pronounce the word motherfucker.

*

Always with the jokes. However, I wasn’t joking when I spoke of myself as my possession. This is how it feels. Coming up the stairs, I wondered if it would be possible to start again in a different way; as a different person, in a sense. For it struck me that I’ve no real obligation to that man, Michael Barrish, neither to who he has been, nor to what he has made of himself.

It’s a ridiculous thought. Ridiculous and impossible. But it’s interesting in what it indicates. I’ve been feeling tired of myself. In a recent email to a friend, someone who knows me only through Oblivio, I apologized for being in a mood. When are you not in a mood? she asked. It’s a fair question.

A few days ago I watched an hour-long interview of a therapist conducted by my dear friend Gary Roma, who is making a documentary film about, uh, dental floss. The film is called Floss! A Meditation on the Possibility of Change. Years ago Gary was having trouble getting himself to floss, among other things, so his therapist suggested, mid-session, that he make a film (he’s a filmmaker, you see) about floss. In this interview Gary had the therapist explain the thinking behind his suggestion (which by the way worked; Gary is now a regular, one might even say religious, flosser).

Anyway he drove me crazy, the therapist did, by continually referring to unseemly or undesirable behavior as patterns, as in, “Our patterns make us reach for the Nutella.” With his language he drew a line between the things one likes about oneself and the things one doesn’t, and indicated that the bad things are outside invaders who make us act in ways we otherwise wouldn’t. These invaders are very much like the devil—little devils, you might say. I found myself cursing at the television.

You may think me fussy for caring so much about loose, metaphoric language. But it matters. The desire for Nutella is real and comes from within. We can chose to ignore it, but we cannot place it outside of ourselves. The devil without is a lie told to excuse the devil within. Speaking loosely.

Years ago my then girlfriend created a character she called “Bad Michael.” Bad Michael was responsible for all the things she didn’t like about me. It was her idea to surgically remove Bad Michael from the premises, leaving only Good Michael behind to have fun with. I pointed out that for such surgery to be possible, there would need to be a place inside my head that was responsible for specific patterns of behavior: the “Specific Patterns of Behavior Center.” There individual behaviors would be arranged in a hierarchy according to both application and scope. So for example, “become noncommunicative when angry” would occupy a lower level in the heirarchy than the more general “get angry.” Behavior Pattern surgery would involve altering or removing specific patterns of behavior at various levels in the hierarchy. Certain motherfuckers (and I don’t mean that nicely) are attempting to do this very thing, via chemicals and genetic hocus-pocus, which if you ask me is the stupidest and scariest thing yet.

I mention Bad Michael and the little devils because of my thought to abandon myself. For that thought too is a lie. One’s self, whatever it is, is the very thing that cannot be abandoned. Or so, ha-ha, I’ve always believed.

Which leaves me… here. As always. The people’s favorite motherfucker. Whoops: second favorite! Not that I care or anything.

Motherfucker, motherfucker, motherfucker.