Krohn’s Disease - Angry Lesbians Are Everywhere

Angry people are everywhere. I should know because I’m one of them. I’m not a lesbian, but I am very angry. Mostly at people, but occasionally at animals and institutions. (I’m looking at you Princeton for not even putting me on the fucking waitlist.) I’m also angry towards politicos and “inspirational speakers” for ruining the terms “hope” and “opportunity” with their lack of “clarity,” whoever keeps hiring Michael Bay and Keanu Reeves, the guy who signs off on the CBS fall lineup every year, and whoever commissioned the Republican National Convention’s horrid house band.

I’m angry with insensitive people for being pricks and sensitive people for being pussies. I’m angry with people who care too much about my future for being overly protective, and people who care too little for being uncaring. But mostly, I think I’m just angry with myself for being so damn angry.

I have a strange sense of self-worth, I guess. I don’t try to create goals nor am I ambitious—anyone who tells you that you need to create goals or try to be ambitious is full of shit and is probably a fat, balding, pasty white, middle-aged man selling you a five-day seminar on how Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People is the greatest book ever written. Yet for this very reason I fear that I might be a bit “off-base.”

A testament to all of this was exemplified during my first week at NYU, when instead of writing a serious letter to my future-self about my goals for and fears of the first semester of college as assigned, I wrote a satirical letter to the late Alfred Hitchcock about how I thought the assignment was BS. Adding to this, I don’t take myself too seriously—indeed I take myself less seriously than a women’s health class taught by Todd Akin—but for some strange reason I take everyone else very seriously.

So why am I, a nerdy, quirky Jewish kid from Georgia, writing a column for VICE? Well I’m a funny guy—at least that’s what my evangelical, Christian mother said when I told her I was an atheist—and I write very absurd things. The hope is that this column, in a way, will be a testament to both; in other words, I hope to make it as funny as possible and as absurd as someone who claims to watch The Room for its cinematography.

Of course, maybe the biggest reason I was asked to write here is that I might be the only writer VICE has hired, and indeed maybe the only writer for any publication in Brooklyn, who doesn’t have a beard. And a Jewish writer without a beard working in Brooklyn is a big move for diversity in the workplace.

If you didn’t notice already, I hate introducing myself to new people. It makes me feel arrogant (by the way, you should add “looking like an arrogant ass-wipe” to the aforementioned list of things that make me angry). The problem is that there is just so much about myself to say that giving you a short essay in which I tell you everything about myself (and making sure it’s a funny introduction to a weekly column) is next to impossible, and bragging about particular aspects of myself will make me look pretentious.

So, let me try going about this a little bit differently: I’m a huge cinephile, I collect comic books, watch lots of sci-fi, have been hit on by a tranny hooker, hate Kevin Smith’s movies (and his annoying hockey jerseys and his attitude), once drank a bit of absinthe, have a thing for Asian girls who actually have tits, own an iPhone with a broken power button, love obscure subgenres of music like folk-punk and electroswing, spoke at a political convention when I was 13, recently started preproduction on my first feature film, have a dog named Spot whose middle name is Ted, saw a coked-out hooker get hauled away by a group of medics, got bullied by a girl in high school, got waitlisted by MIT, and I’m still a virgin.

On a serious note, it’s easier to get Chris Christie into a Smart car than it is to get a writing job nowadays, so I’m extremely grateful to VICE for giving me this opportunity. I love writing, and, moreover, I love knowing that there are people enjoying what I write.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to find an emesis bag to prepare for Sammi Giancola’s Fashion Week show

@JonathanLKrohn

Jonathan Krohn is a writer, nerd, indie filmmaker, and humorist. He collects comic books and watches lots of sci-fi, anime, and classic films. He thinks Kevin Smith is overrated and that the Star Wars prequels sucked. George Carlin is probably his guardian angel.