Helpless Crotchface Imp, Indeed.

...I cannot promise you
I've said goodbye to childish things /
There's still some pretty insults left
and such sport in threatening
---Elvis Costello, "Little Atoms"


"I USE THESE WORDS TO DESCRIBE MIKE O'SHAUGHNESSY."

So begins the list of epithets, seen above, found in my seventh grade school notebook, composed by Jeff G. and myself with two or three contributions in unfamiliar hands. I reproduce it here in its entirety, all 322 obloquies (minus numerous redundant entries), to preserve the mindset of an abusive, snot-nosed, homophobic pre-teen punk circa 1982. I'm fairly certain this was compiled before we were exposed to George Carlin's extensive cuss list on his HBO special. (Please note that the first page has an empty column with the heading "Good Things About Mike." What a coupla assholes.)

I had this list up on an old site for a long time, but it's been gone a while so I thought I'd throw it back up here. I was reminded of it recently when Jeff emailed me this list someone found in a third grade classroom which details the myriad varieties of bitches. If that list is indeed the work of some DC eight-year-old, well, the twelve-year-old me feels mighty schooled. Ours is still pretty good though.

Poor spelling and odd punctuation have been left intact, with occasional bracketed comments as I saw fit (parenthetical notes are original). While there are many questionable entries, I put a question mark after the ones I really have no explanation for.

Be sure to read Mike's response to the list, at the bottom, along with the hate mail I got from some guy, apparently in response to the list. Away we go...

faggot

obnoxious

asshole

retard

moron

gay

fairie

sissy

pussy shit

whimp

jerk

ass wipe

panty waste

bubble brain

air head

jerk off

jack off

homo

fool

schmuck

short

dumb

shit nipple

shit face

shit brain

shit mouth

shit person

shit head

flakey

coo-coo

sex-fiend

pussy-fart

scum

mongoloid

pervert

weakling

baby

dick

dick face

dip shit

dip stick

fart

stinky

albino

crumb

bum

urine head

penis breath

2 face

snot

booger ball

jack ass

twerp

twit

twat

duck lips

nimble nuts

micro minded

shallow

puney

dingy

dizzy

talentless

cluck

stupid

simple

xerox [meaning unoriginal]

druggie

pothead [how prophetic!]

hair brain

schitzophrenic

zit face

rock head

hoser

emble man [???]

Polish (polack)

dimwit

brainless

testie [meaning 'teste,' I assume]

led head [?]

slime

girly

slave

prejudice [?]

"tiny"

bucket of shit

fuck face [written larger than others]

ugly

pathetic

sorry

sad

drip

dirt

scumsucker

geek

pee head

mold head

numb nuts

used toilet paper

slop bucket

pig breath

freak

weirdo

Rely tampon

deuche-head

wet-nose [?]

soggy brained

slob

masher

extra-terrestal (close enough!)

pencil-necked geek

lead ass

vegetable

quirk of nature

prick

pimp [?]

barnacle-brain

myron

waste

common trash

flem (or phlegm) [interesting distinction]

squirmy

greaseball

grimy

monkey meat

spit

low life

shorty

dribble

puke licker

doggie doo

rust

queer

worm

gopher guts

loser

gigolo

lump

fungus

athletes foot

germ

smelly old sock

wet fart

algae

molecule

dildo

pekinese-face

crud

crap

vomit

vermin

parasite

potatohead

garbage

kinky

martian

pain-in-the-ass

infantile

D.O.A.

double panty-waist

mealy mouthed

lame brained

mud

slush

armpit

stoolie

cueball [?]

crude

coccus

cheap shit

ear wax

trash can

jam brain

fruit cake

sicko

udder

playing witout a full deck

B.O.

weed

egg head

gummy

wise ass

poop

meat head

toilet breath

ass pick

hemmeroid

invalid

unusual

peculiar

confused

sleazy

foul

disgusting

dirty

rotten

unpleasant

chicken shit

just plain old chicken

turkey

canary

door knob

flat tire

game over

pee wee

tree stump

"rock"

pot hole

sewer brain

bed wetter

flake

hocker

piglet

goop

weasel

virus

diseased

croup

Mr. Mastabation

mentally bent

pubic hair

seedy

dandruff

unfortunate

princess

mistake

mishap

accident

deceased

not all there

gay lord

lesi

pretty [?!?]

pore

poor

Compound W

muck head

minor mind

pecker

bird guts

wart

living abortion

Jerry's kid

birth defect

saliva

looney tune

hockey puck

emotional wreck [no wonder!]

garbage truck

nuclear waste

mucus mind

freckle

ding dong

litter

bad joke

cow sperm

ink blotch

nuisance

ferret-face

moldy orange

slug

comatose

friendless

nomad

porpoise pus

ignoramus

pollywog

stooge

Smurfy [too true...]

beatnik [?]

vile

epleptic

strange

odd

out of the ordinary

doggie

rat

nipple head

thorn in my side

bottom of the barrel

foolish

tuddball [?]

pimple

annoyance

sinis supremes [?]

illogical

bother

cowchip

dope

idiot

penis membrane

tampon breath

ass bucket

stilts

crap head

odor

helpless

crotch face

imp

shrodz [?]

moronic

bimpore [?]

foot print

cancer

horse scum

[symbol for null set]

mickey

numbskull

putz

insuperior [I imagine JG meant 'inferior']

lousy

wormshit

peckerhead

cocksucker

mother fucker

nipple juice

cock-knocker

pocket pinball player

ingrown toenail

sappy

faggot-ass

yellow snow


Mike responds, twenty years later:

You crumb. You bum. You albino crumb bum. I recall the list vividly. Circulating from gawker to contributor and so on. The miserly scrawl. The horrendous misspellings. The awe now at recognizing phrases I thought I'd only recently encountered. "Why, I've known that word all along!" The list exists as a sort of Rosetta Stone of a questionably misspent youth. I feel like Detective Kujan comprehending his bulletin board after Verbal Kint's spiel. Its Joycean results amaze me.

Micro-minded dirty canary. It reads like a surrealist manifesto without the pretension. The list says nothing but this: "We consider Mike O'Shaughnessy to be..."

The fun was in the compilation of terms. Certainly any attempt at insult was lost on me; I believe I even contributed to the list. Everyone wanted to be a part of the list-making, except for the girls, who viewed us with benign amusement and amused disgust. [Editor's note: Comparing handwriting in the list to confirmed O'Shaughnessy samples elsewhere in my notebook suggests that Mike's meager yet undeniably pithy contributions were "cancer" and "horse scum." This may remain unverifiable, however, as I seem to recall Chris Ingram adding a few terms but have nothing else in his handwriting to compare it with.]

[Whoops! This just in, from Mike... "Erratum: Indeed, Chris Ingram, not I, contributed "cancer" and "horse scum" to the list. Why I remember that, I don't know. Horse scum?" As the only other entry in a foreign hand ("ding dong") is clearly not Mike's writing, perhaps he only suggested entries and Jeff or I recorded them. Or, more likely, ignored them. Mike continues:]

Thanks to Paul Saur for unearthing the list so that future generations of dopey grade-schoolers may draw inspiration from its mammoth contents.

My favorite triumvirate? Freckle ding dong litter. [Editor's note: I had asked Mike to pick his favorite consecutive triumvirate of aspersions. For the record, mine is probably "hocker piglet goop," with "helpless crotch face imp" a close second. Strike that. Reverse it.]

Some time after putting the list up, I received a bizarre e-mail from one G_____ C___ Fat that seemed to take issue with it... I think. I present it here in its entirety, omitting only the e-mail address he gives at the end.

[subject heading:] "IT IS ALL YOUR FAULT"

Since the typical human being is selfish and likes to treat others selfishly they involve themselves into affecting the lives of strangers. For selfish reasons. They like to make innocents negative and resentful and choose to participate in human distortion and discord. For the purpose of hurt and pain. All because the typical human being is selfish.

The typical human being is also difficient in self esteem and maturity and autonomy and individuality and independence. They are really needy overgrown crybabies that need their colicky pains alleviated. It wouldn't be so bad except that selfishness and immaturity sometimes corrupt. Making these people self destructive and also immoral. The corruptions of the selfish affected many innocents and made many of those innocents negative, immature, and selfish themselves. Many of these people expect everyone to also behave selfish, immature, negative, and self destructive, involve themselves into the personal lives of strangers, and pretty much live ridiculous. Most of the human condition is ridiculous because of these people.

Insults: Sketchy irresponsible goofy anal monkey

infantile nerd colicky poop prissy cunt little shit of the universe

Shit joke shit boy

Shit of the universe embarrassment

Anal faggot telepathic nigger animal loser

Inferiority complex overgrown crybaby fagboy

Black sheep cunt bitch shit of the universe

dumbfuck shit boy loser shit joke

pathetic ignorant insectoid stack of worthless shit

Intrusive selfish inferiority complex loser

Pathetic anal shit monkey buffoon asshole

Annoying inferior pest shit boy nerdling clod

Competitive shit boy pussy loser faggot bitch

Couldn't own and control even a worthless piece of shit loser

Substandard shit men of the universe

Human men are actually rat monkey women with penises

Least in the universe shit men shit jokes failures

There ends, rather abruptly, my first real piece of hate mail. (Online, anyway; my zine got its share of angry missives, but at least Fat used spell-check---no, wait, there's "difficient.") I think the second-to-last line is my favorite. There's a horror screenplay in there somewhere. And I'm kinda pissed that, compiling the list twenty-odd years ago, we missed "nerdling clod."

Unfortunately, I have deleted the letter I wrote back to Mr. Fat, but the gist of it was that he is a lunatic. Hoping this was all a gag, I Googled his name only to find an embarrassing, flatulent treatise at a vanity press-type site. It was essentially the same thing as the first two paragraphs of his e-mail, but imagine that redundant nonsense iterated endlessly, and pointlessly broken up into identical-sounding chapters to boot. If it was indeed a joke, I wasted a lotta time searching for a punchline. You can look for it yourself, at author-me.com. When searching for his name, the first results page will have several Fat hits, which is exactly what I recommend you do before trying to read his asinine drivel.

In my reply to G. C. Fat, I pondered whether he has lucid moments anymore, and asked if he realized that all the vile things at the end of his letter are his own gruesomely sad feelings about himself, since it has little or nada to do with the list in question. I'm guessing he found my site by masturbatorily Googling some perverse phrase that inflames his twisted, shame-fueled libido. I advised he go back on his meds, triple the dose, and reconsider the relative benefits of electroconvulsive therapy. I bet he was a much weirder kid at twelve than I ever was.