Hate your parents. Decide that you’ll think up a reason for hating them later, but for the time being simply hate them for everything that they are. See The Wild One when you are 12, and realize that Marlon Brando is your hero. Memorize the scene in the bar where he is asked what he is rebelling against by the dancing girl. Get tingles down your spine every time he pulls the toothpick from his mouth and responds, “Whaddya got?” Learn from your mother, who you hate, that he became fat and ugly in his old age. Decide that he became fat and ugly because he lost his rebellious nature, and pledge to not make the same mistake. Ask your mother, who you hate, if she will buy you a black leather jacket and motorcycle. When she responds that 12-year olds don’t wear black leather and drive motorcycles, hate her more.
Buy a box of toothpicks, and learn to chew on one without making your mouth bleed (too much.) Start sitting in the back of the class. When the teacher asks you why you have stopped doing your homework, respond “Whaddya got?” Nod significantly at her and pretend that this makes sense. Get a grade report saying that you have “fallen off severely in your studies, seeming instead to be more wrapped up in image.” Put it on the refrigerator at home with a smiley face drawn on it. When your father takes it down, hate him more.
Take an introduction to Marxism class your senior year of high school. Decide that Karl Marx is your hero. Ask your parents to get you a car. When they decline, decide that you hate them because of their bourgeoisie attachment to money. Call them capitalist dogs and call your friend for a ride to Burger King. Secretly begin calling yourself Karl Brando. Begin countdown of days until you can legally have your name changed.
Don’t go to college. Opt instead to live in your parents’ basement and read the Communist Manifesto. Really really start to like the Saturday checkout girl at the 7/11. Listen to “Teenage Dirtbag” over and over again, and fantasize about her revealing her shared love of Iron Maiden to you and taking you to a concert. Start listening to Iron Maiden, just in case. Apply to a job at the 7/11. Work there for four days, but get fired for slipping Communist pamphlets that you printed off the internet into people’s grocery bags. Decide to burn the 7/11 down in protest. Get distracted by Marlon Brando movie marathon on television. Resolve to just scratch “Vive la resistance” into the front window of the store.
Be told by your parents to get a job or get out. Hate them more. Leave. You didn’t want to live there anyway. Move in with your friend’s cousin, Chotski. Chotski is an artist. Help Chotski with his art by locating “raw spaces,” like warehouses and funny-smelling alleys, for his *Play-dough Mental Shock Troupe* to perform in. Co-author a four hour performance piece entitled *Languish in my Elf Land*. Begin construction on the central set-piece: a giant spleen made out of bottle caps.
Come home late from rehearsal one night and find that Chotski has been arrested for drug sales. Get brought in for questioning; feel bad that you don’t have any toothpicks. Feel even worse that the interrogator doesn’t ask you what you’re rebelling against. Ask him to ask you. He doesn’t. Demand that he ask you. Spend a night in jail. Get bailed out by your parents; allow your mother to hug you because the guard isn’t looking. Spend the weekend in your basement.
Sit on the couch and watch *The Wild One* on network television. Go to the bathroom during the commercials; realize that you look pale and overweight. Decide that Marlon Brando became fat and ugly because he was too rebellious to be kept down by modern ideas of image. Go upstairs and rummage through your refrigerator. When your mother asks you what you want to eat, resist urge to respond "Whaddya got?" Sit down at the table while she mixes up a batch of brownies, rub your hand over your chin and decide to pick up some shaving cream when you vandalize the 7/11.
