A Funny Thing About Patrice O’Neal

I’ve heard the news today that Patrice O’Neal is no longer with us. I’ll admit, I followed him very much from afar, and he was by no means one of my favorites, but I’ve known who he was and I’ve known he was a funny, funny man and I’ve at least liked him for several years. I’ll make this post laconic because I don’t want it to seem like some skinny white guy is jumping on the bandwagon of sorrow over his death, but just know, it does affect me. Not nearly as much as Ryan Dunn’s death affected me, but Patrice O’Neal was as well, now that I look back, actually another one of the reasons I initially started making Youtube videos back in the formative years of 7th or 8th grade, and as we known, beginning the Youtube videos is what catalyzed what I will be doing for the rest of my life. In fact, as evidence, I’d like you to read this excerpt from a post I made on this very blog on July 29th, 2008.

Would you guys like the hear a little known fact? Originally, I created  “Everybody Loves Chad Wick” [My first video ever] in hopes of someday being on Web Junk. This was of course, far before I knew how crappy the show was. I guess you could say, though, that even though it is the worst show ever, Web Junk is essentially responsible for Reubnick.

This came from a whole post, eloquently titled “Why “Web Junk 2.0″ sucks completely,” about my disappointment towards how awful that show had become written in a typically exclamation mark riddled, overdramatic manner of an 8th grader. I remembered, even at the time, always watching Patrice O’Neal’s Web Junk on VH1 and wishing so badly I could wind up on there so he could make fun of me. This is the truth, so stick a needle in my eye.

I will miss him. I knew very little about him other than Web Junk, the Office and some stand-up specials so I won’t claim I was much of a dedicated fan, but I will admit, I am sad about this.

For whatever contributions he made to who I am now, I thank him.

 

Words about Hummingbirds

Hey, just out of curiosity, how often do you guys have to duck to avoid sharp Hummingbird beaks from diving into and penetrating some side of your head? Actually, better question: how many of you have ever even actually SEEN a Hummingbird?

That's my boy!

Those are the two extreme ends of the “Hummingbird exposure” spectrum, and I can safely say after sitting down and pondering about it, I fall on the most extreme side of the former, I.E avoiding Hummingbird projectiles habitually and hoping their beaks don’t break on my head because I would feel eternally horrible. I am officially at the realisation that the high level in which I deal with Hummingbirds is staggering, and I feel compelled to write about this phenomenon now, to see if anybody else (and be honest when your comments, I don’t want this website to become a yahooanswers type deal filled with pompous fabricating braggarts) shares the same relationship I have with this species of tiny little fast birdies.

The following, I’d like to make clear, is not an exaggeration, and I can’t stress that enough. But, I will say I see Hummingbirds every single day during the Spring and Summer months and sometimes a little bit of Fall. Not only do I see them with such frequency, I think that quite honestly, I see Hummingbirds more than any single bird that exists. This includes Robins, Jays, Crows, Gulls, Cranes and even just a mere Finch, just a common finch bird. They don’t compete with Hummingbirds. In fact, no joke, as I write this there is one literally staring at me, hovering inches away from me in midair. I’m being very still to not scare it as I write.

Well, okay, it has since moved on to the feeder but I can still hear it and see it…and here’s the thing – I’m USED to this kind of thing!

To regress to the earlier days, my whole life has been filled with every neat animal you’d ever want, and that’s one of the highest marks I can give the Village I grew up in…and probably one of the ONLY high marks. This I can’t even say with much sincerity in 2011 given all of the changes and industrialization that took place in this red and old town, but it wasn’t always that way, I assure you.

As a boy, I couldn’t look outside without being treated to a neat animal. Almost all the good midwestern animals besides badgers, bears and wolves. Deer were most abundant (still are), but I could also count on Coyotes (one of the greatest), Raccoons, Possums, Gophers, Moles, Voles, Squirrels, the mean spirited Red Squirrels, Chipmunks, frogs, crawfishes, muskrats, turkeys, snakes, and of course, the elusive fox, to get in on the party. I only rarely saw Foxes, but I never will forget the exhilaration of when I did. One time in particular there was this one kooky Fox just whizzing and dashing around the neighborhood all day, and I only caught a few glimpses of it. It was just like a dog, particularly the Papillons I grew up with, and this probably contributed to a Fox becoming my favorite animal…well, next to a Dog of course.

Good men

I always consider that I more or less grew up in a threshold between Suburban and Rural, but I chose to trend rural. I say this because on one side of my house you’ve got insufferable neighbors,  coffee-drinkers, lawn-mowers, rightwing-voters, cop-callers, block-partiers and the typical pathetic “Hiya-Neighbor” wastes of a human existence that only serve to detract from the Earth we live on in an uncountable slew of ways until the day they die of their own cigarette-inflicted cancer or office-related high blood pressure or just pure unadulterated gluttony. This is the side I resent, the side I’d pity if they hadn’t made their own beds and slept in it in their constant suburban struggle to shun us for our refusal to build up their all-important curb appeal and their disgusting tendency to call the police on us if we so much as -

A) Mutter under our breath
B) Try to reclaim something they “finderskeepers” took from us
C) Own the blind, senile dog that ran into their yard in her confusion and crashed into the creek and almost drowned and froze to death in the dead of winter.

Yes, our neighbors actually called the police on us for trespassing because our confused dog almost killed herself in their yard and we were somehow supposed to prevent this. Admittedly, this ended on the side of my house I prefer but it started on the Suburban side. I realize I’ve gone off in a tangent, but those are the type of people my neighbors are. Awful, miserable people. People who are nosy, gossipy busybodies and will probably find themselves reading this very passage. To that, I stick to my convictions and say to them that they both ought to be ashamed of themselves for living the lives they live and that they are more than welcome to stay on that side of the house, because I much prefer the other one; the rural side.

This is my backyard, and touching it is a cornfield that leads to either a forest or a chicken and kitten riddled farm. I LOVE this forest, as it’s everything you’d ever find in a forest in some sort of coming of age movie. Cat corpses to poke with sticks, abandoned tree-houses, a long and winding creek with dilapidated bridges, stashes of 1980′s Playboys stowed in a hallowed log, mysterious footprints, rumors, relics, piles of burned George W. Bush yard-signs, coyote hideouts, snake-holes, and one of my personal favorite parts of my childhood: the crashed Nash Cosmopolitan pretty deep in the woods. I had all of those things. It was the perfect recipe for an interesting child. Connected to the woods was a beautiful flowery valley that I liked to spend time at. I lived the life of Christopher Robin, as the 100 Acre Woods was right in my backyard, vividly similar to a bizarre degree. I loved it.

Then, one day I saw them tow the truck from the woods, and that was the start. The Farmer, who in typical kid fashion I called “Old Man Zimmer,” died and the new Farmers were violent and scary reckless good-ole-boy types. Then, the sucker punch, they quite literally took my flowery valley paradise and put up a parking lot. Maybe that was around the time in 5th grade when my childhood innocence was simultaneously being sucked away by my racist, sexist and morbidly obese teacher who told me I wasn’t amusing, called me a bad actor and writer and forced me to stop doing my favorite hobby, drawing cartoons, because I “wasn’t even good at it.” Either way, that’s when I stopped being a boy. They took away my places of refuge and my teacher was making me suicidal. The worst aspect was that the wondrous animals began to go away when the ubiquitous construction around here hit the scene. The foxes left first, all the woodland creatures followed, the turkeys went home, crawfishes swam away and just as recently as last summer, my favorite coyotes took their advice and found better places to live. I’m afraid I’m the next animal in line slated to go away as well. But for now we seem delegated to just loads and loads of deer and your squirrels and chipmunks. None of the rest liked the racket of kids playing baseball and their stupid parents on the sidewalk. Bigger picture, the animals probably left the whole village for the same reason I’ll leave – sick of Walmart and lawnmowers, there’s a better life to be had elsewhere.

However, the animals that will forever stick around are the birds. Oodles and oodles of birds, you guys. Birds, birds, birds. The only birds that got the memo to leave are the turkeys, the rest are quite content. Eagles, vultures, chickadees, cardinals, finches, the bird equivalent of foxes to me, ducks, herrings, redwing blackbirds, bluebirds, orioles, golds, waxwings, grosbeaks, the whole crew. But none quite like the very subject of this post – Hummingbirds.

In the summer, I wake up to Hummingbirds buzzing around the phlox, I go to the living room and see a hummingbird drinking from the feeder and another one watching on a specific Hunmingbird branch on the tree they seem to love, if I just walk anywhere around the house, I just expect Hummingbirds. The things are everywhere, and it’s fantastic! I am so accustomed to these tiny birdies that I can recognize their hums to a T and especially their chirps. Did you even know Hummingbirds chirp? I, too, was astounded at first, but now I’m just used to it. Both sides, me and Hummingbirds, are so used to one another that they will just fly up to me and stare me straight in the eyes, no fear to be detected whatsoever. In fact, as you saw, just earlier in this very post one of them did that. They’ve done it like 3 more times since I wrote that part, and I’ve only eaten dinner in between. They just like to check out what I’m doing, and I just get to look at them, soaking in every detail. Their slender little petite bodies, their unreal fan-like wings, their svelte heads with their emerald feathers and shimmery ruby throats, and for the ladies, a very specific hue of purple I’ve only seen in Hummingbirds. Perhaps most striking are their incredibly expressive eyes, against all odds. Beady black eyes are not generally an outlet for expression, but the beautiful Hummingbird defies this. I am so in tune to these little guys that I often lose sight of it. Therefore, I take it for granted. I had to sit down and come to the conclusion that this is simply not normal, it’s not even vaguely common, at least to my knowledge. Hummingbirds come as a commodity to people, a very rare good luck charm, and then here I am with Hummingbirds very much a part of my day-to-day life. But, duly note this; I have always appreciated it and appreciate it even more after thinking what a seemingly unique situation I am in with these birds.

I think much of this comes from years, almost two decades, of establishing trust with the birds, thanks entirely to my mother. It all boils down to the Hummingbird feeder. For those who aren’t familiar, the concept is just filling a clear little vial with bright-red sugar water to hang on a gutter. There are tiny grids for the Hummingbird’s delicate beaks to penetrate so they can drink the juice.

My advice to those doing this is to keep the juice FRESH, because they will thank you. I would say like with many things, my Mom is the one with the golden touch for the juice, because the Hummingbirds will and always do drink down the entire feeder in less than 3 weeks, which is insane. Look at it this way: for a HUMAN, the feeder is about the size of a generous cup of water. For a Hummingbird, it’s about the size of 6 or 7 of them tall, and I have no idea how many of them you could stuff in there, but it’s no small number. So, in three weeks, any number of Hummingbirds drink several, several times their weight in juice. I guess this is just because they really like this juice…and they remember it from year to year. This is evidenced by the fact that in Spring, the tell-tale sign it’s Hummingbird season is when Hummingbirds fly up to our living-room window and just look at is. Just levitating and looking at us through the glass, basically beckoning to us that we better get our shit together and put the feeder outside already. They actually tell us. Every year.

Why this strikes me is because I know damn well that Hummingbirds don’t live for 20 years. So, how the heck do they know that there will be fresh H-bird juice waiting for them every single year? My theory comes from something I read about crows. I think it’s entirely possible that somehow, a genetic memory of this feeder location might be passed down from generation to generation. Now, THAT is flattery. I think it’s safe to say that our yard more or less is the monopoly on Hummingbirds around here as well, because whereas our deck has become some sort of a hub, our neighbor has the same feeder…and the levels of juice have stayed the same all summer. Just no takers…although, it sure wouldn’t hurt to give them some fresh juice like they love!

So, let’s talk about Hummingbirds in the comments. Do you guys get them so much? I always consider it a special honor, but I felt the same way about being able to crack walnuts with my hands, which the Internet wasted no time in telling me everybody could do it and that I’m not special. So, tell me about your experiences with this special bird I love so much…and don’t worry, feel free to brag. It’s no secret I just did!

And here's this for some reason

Premiere

Ah, what a good two days I was just lucky enough to live through. The Brewers swept the Cubs, Ben Folds announced a new CD collection, my sister made me this nice cake, I purchased a lovely lobster pizza…oh, and I also had my first movie premiere of my life, and of my career. And it was the most humbling, exciting, fantastic night of my life. This, I completely am confident of.

Listen, I’ve been putting off writing this post all day because I just don’t even know where to start. I am still actively coming down from yesterday’s high, and honestly you guys, I hate to pull this on you, but I’m just going to have to take it from the top and go down the line from first to last, chronological like. That’ll be the only way this will work. Don’t hold it against me. Also, be forewarned, this might creep into a pretentious territory if I don’t watch my step. I’m not used to such a success being thrust upon me, and therefore I am not well-versed in writing about such. Just look at whatever post I wrote a year ago, I can guarantee it was some whiny junk about YouTube. NO, NO, don’t actually go back, though. I just said that hyperbolically. It will make me look like a doofus. Just keep reading this.

As a few people on twitter certainly couldn’t have missed because of the saturation, I have been going on about my upcoming premiere of my first (technically) feature length film, “The Nature Of Hatman.” I say FEATURE LENGTH because if we want to work off of Winnie The Pooh standards, my film that comes in at 58:55 almost matches the 63 minute runtime of that new Pooh movie. So, you know, I was hesitant to pull that phrase out, but like always, Pooh came to the rescue. But, let me get back to the prior point. It was my first movie and I was pulling out all the shots. I needed something to ease the pain in my heart after I took the walk from YouTube, so I set out to make what was at that point a troubled YouTube video into it’s own movie. I think I went into this at more length previously (I honestly can’t remember, I’m not at the internet presently) but it was something I’d intended to be part of a two part series of bizarre, useless documentaries, and it was to be supplemented by a follow-up about a black 2 second extra from an episode of “Are You Afraid Of The Dark” who turned his head really fast. My problems quickly began with Hatman, though, so I put it off. It became so clear so quickly that I was going to need more than 10 minutes to work with, and to put into account the single-cell-sized, impatient, judging, simple and nonexistent shit-for-brains of the average YouTube viewer, unless I boiled down all my research into 30 seconds and made a gay Asian cat present it, it never had a shot on YouTube. At this point, I had about 8 months of work under my belt, and then I quit YouTube. I had no projects to fall back on…besides Hatman. So, I went for it full throttle, and in order to meet some actually nonexistent film-fest deadlines, I made sure I finished it by the end of June. Boom, finished, easy. Well, not easy really, but I still got it done, and not a moment too soon. I then sought out to throw some entries into film fests. Since the completion, I have sent out four film fest entries, but I won’t be hearing back from any of them until the fall. That was up in the air though, and too long to wait, dammit! “You know what?” I thought. “I WANT to see this on a big screen. I want to see it. Yes, I will invite people, but I just want to see it on the screen. I am a poor man, however, and I wouldn’t go over $100 dollars. I’m sure the Koch brothers are distantly laughing somewhere and pissing on each other at my lack of wealth, but that was the limit I set. Thus was because I first asked the Oriental, and they wanted at least double that. I couldn’t swing that! So I sent an email to every OTHER nearby Wisconsin theater I could find. Probably about 10 or something, with the $100 limit explicitly laid out. Most of them didn’t even waste the time to reply, presumably because they were ALL collectively laughing and pissing on each other, and one from like Fox Point or something replied with a response to the effect of “What is this I don’t even. Are you kidding? No!!” However, one of them, just one, came through with the response. It was this little place I sort of contacted as my fringe theater, on account of the fact I’d never been there and it only had one theater room that seated 64. It was the Alchemist Theatre in Bay View on Kinnickinnic, and I can say now after the fact, I don’t think there is a venue I would have preferred over the Alchemist Theatre. I can’t give it marks high enough. On any scale with any amount of stars, I’d give this place the maximum starrage. Quite honestly, I was treated so hospitably and accommodatingly, up until after I left last night, I really was wary I was going to get scammed, or was actively being scammed. Not so. Not so at all, I have since learned. I don’t know even what I did to deserve such nice, friendly, helpful treatment from beginning until the end, but I can’t say thank you enough about it. I probably sounded like a blitherer I kept thanking everybody last night.

Basically, The Alchemist Theatre told me they’d let me rent the theater for precisely what I asked for: $100. After vocalizing a “whuwhuwhu??” and rubbing my eyes like one of those curly-cue little kids with the butt-pajama flap after waking up, I initially assumed I was at least only going to be allotted like one hour, or get shaken-down the line on some weird sitting fee or something. That never happened either. For one Benjamin, I got the deluxe. The works. It was magical. As if just that price wasn’t good enough, I soon learned it all went on credit for the drinks at the bar. Theoretically, with a couple bucks of admission, I could make that money back! And my mind is still blown to smithereens about one very specific thing. Not only did I BREAK EVEN on the reservation fee, I earned revenue for the first time in my life on a film I made. It wasn’t so much, but the fact is the fact. I am now a money-making filmmaker. I am flabbergasted.

This, my friends, was just the icing on the cake after I came home to what I am confident is the closest I have ever come to a perfect night. Thinking about it, it could have only been a PERFECT night if Regina Spektor kissed me on the lips, or Rosie Jones showed up topless…and also kissed me on the lips. It was just near perfection. This screening I had listed on a Facebook events page the very day after I reserved the Theatre, and on the day of the screening, I had 49 people listed as ‘attending.’ Of course, like 65 schlubs were ‘not attending,’ but running through that list I found nobody on that list upset me by their unavoidable absence. Every single one of them I came to realize were the riff-raff and the static in my life. I think I ought to erase them not only from my Facebook, but also from my life. Trim them off. Because one other thing last night did for me was basically lay out in the clearest terms who I have in my immediate, mutual network of people of importance and support. Not just the night itself, but the whole project. If those who mattered to me weren’t there, they told me in advance why and how they regret it, and in all those cases it was perfectly understandable and forgivable and just that simple act almost doubles for if they actually came. Those who mattered who said they would come but didn’t have already told me in the day after why they missed it, and although a bit more obnoxious, this is still very forgivable. As for those who said they would come but didn’t? Well, they are jokers, and browsing the list, none of them are people who I consider to matter. All in all, I think just about literally every single person who is important to me got word of this screening. I got well-wishes from England, apologies from my family in Georgia and Arizona for very obviously not being able to come, and acknowledgements from at least my good pal Matt from the Ohio crew I’ve come to know. I am breaking my brain trying to think if anybody who matters to me didn’t have some involvement, however minimal, in that which was regarding Hatman, and I just honestly don’t think there is anybody. I can’t make this up. This just ended up being the perfect storm of my friends and family in my life, and as long as I live, I will never, ever forget this general time period. This has been a biography chapter that just wrote itself, I’ll tell you that much. This is where “humbling” comes into play. Everybody I love knew how big a deal this was to me. My nurse sister called in sick for the first time of her life to make it, my dad put on a nice shirt, my mom made me one of the best dinners I could ask for, and my other sister made me the aforementioned delicious cake in the event that nobody showed up and I needed something to cheer me up.

Well, needless to say, people showed up. It was like nothing I ever expected. Honestly, I am a firm advocate of always expecting nothing so you can’t be disappointed, so I fooled myself into thinking I thought nobody would show up. But, at the core, I thought maybe, just maybe I’d squeak out 30 people, TOPS. Wrongo. I almost had a full house. Granted, a whole full house would have only been 64, but I only say the word “only” because I have to. Don’t for a second underestimate how powerful it is to walk into a room packed with all those who are significant to you (and even some strangers, by God) when you just aren’t expecting it. Now imagine walking on the stage to give the little intro and out of nowhere getting at least a minute of applause, before doing anything. I was almost immobilized with joy and gratitude. I don’t remember what I said before and after the show, I just know it couldn’t have been more actually from the heart. I couldn’t manage anything BESIDES that at that moment. I didn’t cry that night, but I was shaken with joy the whole way through…and there were tears shed. One of those people was the bartender. After the show, he overheard me saying that it was one of the biggest days of my life, and he apologized for being a “pussy” and proceeded to get misty and wipe away some tears. I’ve seen few things in my life more genuine and authentic than that, and it really struck a note with me. I want that guy to know he’s a good man. I was telling him I had a certain amount of jealousy that he works at that wonderful little theater, but through the course of the night, I came to realize he most definitely deserves to be working there. He had an impact, as did the very nice lady who scheduled me and everything. I want you to know they gave me permission to hang up a full-sized movie poster on the door and information so any single person walking inside had no choice but to see it, they billed me on their website and in the calendar, they offered online ticket sales, they let me rent out the theater for essentially the whole night, and for what? $100. Money which I earned back, and THEN some. Honestly, this place and the people involved will have to be something for me to remember next time Walmart or Scott Walker pisses me off. This is proof that not only in general, but just within driving distance there is such friendliness and helpfulness that I seem to have lived my whole life without ever experiencing or being exposed to it in the village I grew up. No wonder people love Bay View. No wonder I want to move to Kinnickinnic some day. I love, love, love it there.

If this wasn’t enough to explode my heart and head last night, FIVE of my former teachers showed up to support me, three of which who were in the cast. It was so excellent. These people are my favorite teachers for a reason, and I am going to easily say I’ve gone past just the student-teacher relationship with them all. They are my friends. However, there will always be that teacherly undercurrent, and I was actually told by my former English teacher, whom I actually consider the best teacher I’ve ever had the good fortune of having, that the screening was the “proudest moment of his teaching career.” Come on, you guys! This is like Lifetime movie things! It’s overwhelming.

But, to wrap things up, this screening was like nothing I’m used to, nothing I’ve ever done before, in just exactly the best way possible. This is the first time I’ve been a crucial element of a dinner and a movie date of a lounge-lizard couple I’ve never met before. This is the first time my dad has ever told me that he was euphoric by something I created. This is the first time I made a bartender cry. This was the first time I got to sit in the back of a large room and hear people laugh, slap their knees, gasp, and applaud my very own content, content I wrote, directed, filmed, produced, starred in and edited. And I got to do it for an entire hour. There is no adjective powerful enough to explain the specialness of last night. It was everything I would have wanted in my first film screening. I can say without a doubt that all the joy, satisfaction, excitement, and contentment YouTube ever gave me in 4 1/2 years was not only matched last night, but multiplied two-fold. If there was any remaining, lingering doubts in my head that this is what I WILL do for the rest of my life, they were snuffed last night. I am doing my damnedest to break into the business of making movies, and last night was a colossal step for me. Even this young, for the first time ever, I feel things coming together. I’m a movie-man now, and I officially intend to die with the same title. This is what I am supposed to be doing.

Who IS the Hatman?

This is what I’ve been up to since I left Youtube four months ago.

For More -

Today’s Premiere Screening in Milwaukee: http://alchemisttheatre.com/index.cfm?fuse=viewShow&showId=151

Facebook Page – http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=228833350490816

Express Milwaukee Listing: http://www.expressmilwaukee.com/event-60030-the-nature-of-hatman.html

IMDB Page (Still Processing) – http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1996413/

 

Regina

You know, things like what I’m about to write happens to me from time to time. I just finished accidentally (or unintentionally) watching like two hours of videos of Regina Spektor being a beautiful genius.

Not even her music! I mean to say that I watched just videos of her in concert, having little mishaps and things, being in fan videos of her after shows, and a whole lot of interviews, just to see her being herself. There was this one video of her discussing democracy and answering really stupid type questions in an intelligent, well-spoken, cute manner. It was just her speaking off the top of her head for like 10 minutes, and just that was one of the most captivating, endearing, almost spell-binding things I have seen in months somehow. Now because of it, Regina Spektor has gotten all in my head with her sweet, mousy little smile and her messy hair and those sundresses, and I can’t shake her away. For like hours now, I’m being followed by this Regina Spektor spirit (in the best way possible), and when I am closing my eyes, I am seeing that smile of hers and hearing her music. Regina Spektor, presently, is very much stuck with me. I’m not complaining or anything, but when something like this happens, my brain gets all in a tizzy and I get all sort of thoughts I need to think, and the only way to get some clarity is to take a walk to an empty picnic table or the dock or a pond and throw them all on paper. I do this quite often, it just doesn’t usually end up anywhere, because I can imagine that the little audience that sometimes reads the things on my website and sometimes doesn’t won’t want to hear the emotional rattlings of this lanky clown they have gotten to know as Reuben Glaser. Sometimes it seeps out, and anybody who reads this thing ought to know by now that this blog is much less “kool upd8′,s” “tipz n’ trix,” and promotion as it is some form of a diary for me. So, knowing that, you can either sit with it or head on out, because things are going to get all psyche up in here.

The reason Regina Spektor has invaded my mind is much more than her cute, gentle, genuine sweetness, that little accent she has, her unexpectedly big and terrific breasts that I had never acknowledged until today, her delightful quirkiness, the fact I have been just a fan of her music since she quite literally left me breathless on Conan that one time, or her lovely mind, it’s actually because she gives me a very familiar feeling I get from time to time I have found out today, more often than I probably should. When I was watching her talk and be Regina Spektor, I had that tinge of “pre-love” hit me something fierce, and “pre-love” is something I like to say that means I am very confident that if I ever met her, I’d fall quickly into actual love with her. Even if there is a 13 year difference in our age, thousands of miles between us, just as many people who have the hots for her like I suddenly do, fame, that she will never see my face or know my name or anything about me, and the fact she probably already has a significant other as I wrote this, I still got the tinge. I get it a lot for many girls I have found. But don’t get me wrong, I’m only 17, I don’t pretend to know a lick about love, nor should I probably even. I’m trying to figure this all out right now. Truth be told, I have only had one girlfriend in my life, and she was pretty batshit insane to me after a very small while while and left me pretty broken and lost for the large part of last winter. To her credit (and to be fair, there is a bit to her credit, she is a very nice, smart girl, just unstable, reckless and not right for me) she was really the final push I needed to get myself some sertraline in my life, and I don’t regret that part even a little.

This January, February, March, April and May I was as cold as the weather, an iceman who wouldn’t let anybody in to the point of everybody giving up on trying. I was so lost in so many ways, I was so alone, and that’s when I quit YouTube, which didn’t help in the least at the time. Now, I’m on Zoloft, and I see the sun again. I am me again, I’m back on track, I’m warm again, I have my personality back, and I’m finally doing some of the most exciting things in my life that I never had the confidence to do…for example, writing, directing, producing, editing and starring in a whole movie all by myself that is going to have a PREMIERE SCREENING in Milwaukee at the end of the month…but that’s for another post. Still, on some primal, mental, innermost level, I constantly have that feeling that something very, very important is missing…and that would be the special lady I don’t have in my life. And it’s starting to begin to hurt now. To be blunt, I have such a lonesome, longing heart, and even at only 17, I can feel that the love in my life is missing. My Mom always likes to tell me that until I was born, she felt something in her heart was missing, but when I came into existence, it went away. Now, that’s obviously a very different breed of love, a maternal love that can’t even be equated to other loves, but still, lately I have been able to understand more than ever what she means like that. I have many of these empty rooms in my heart, and I am just hoping so badly that as I get older, I can fill them up and remove the vacancy sign. I’m sure the tugs of wanting children is in me somewhere, but that will unleash itself in many years, in no less than at least one decade from now…but for right now, I feel that desire for companionship stronger than ever. It’s a void. I hate being alone, and it’s just a challenge not having somebody to pass the time with most days.

Frankly, I probably rely TOO heavily on companionship, but as it stands, I am quite the solitary man, and it doesn’t suit me. The problems with that lie within, however, and it’s become pretty clear why. It’s nice to be the funny guy, but as has happened with me and probably others in my same boat, I’ve wound up being ONLY the funny guy. It would seem that my claim to fame around here is my YouTube channel and my appearances on the High-School News Program. I’m the comedy film guy. And, I won’t be humble in saying that every time I appear on there, it’s met with pretty much rave reviews locally (not that the bar is set very high…it’s practically on the floor and I’m just stepping over it), and to this day I receive compliments often about it almost weekly. It’s generally the first things strangers will go to, and it’s always an ego-boost…but the downfall is that I am a fictional TV Show character to these people. It’s really gotten to that point. Sure, people love to watch me gallivant around and be the buffoon version of me, but the concept that I am an actual real person doesn’t seem to even begin to register with people. It’s as if I am regarded as maybe a “Shawn Spencer” from Psych type of guy, or Peter Venkman, where people think I have everything figured out and don’t need other things to occupy myself with because my Valentine was a super-model and I tend to put on a happy-go-lucky, go-with-the-flow, wacky, zany demeanor. Maybe it’s genuine, or maybe they won’t let it or don’t let it register because it’s disappointing or vexing, but I am an actual person with actual emotions who is very capable of ticking. Yes, above all, I love to be the funny guy and make people laugh, but the truth is that it’s basically my fine-tuned way of coping with insecurities, which in a weird cycling way only contributes to the TV show character plight.

What I am getting at is that I’m okay with it largely, but I am literally desperate to find the lady who will acknowledge I am a real person someday, and I will love that girl like nothing else that has ever existed. Now, this is where “pre-love” ties in. I will say I am a firm believer that everybody has a larger handful of “true loves.” It’s not only a “one person for each person and it’s your game to find them” type of deal. That’s a pile of hooligan shenanigans. There are a lot of people somewhere for each one person to love, absolutely. Still with 6,000,000,000 people on the Earth, even finding that handful of people is a very hard task, and with all people, those who you could love are few and far in between. But, they are out there, and with the inclusion of the Internet, finding those theoretical suspected loves is boundlessly easier. But ever meeting them or getting their attention is not. To digress, I pretty strongly believe that Regina Spektor will never know who I am, and I’m no one to try and change that. Still, I think I could LOVE Regina Spektor if circumstances helped me out the whole way. I could LOVE Hayley Williams, Kat Dennings, Mindy White, and I could love some people I’ve had the good fortune of meeting online; the special ladies in New York, Scotland, and mostly England. I think I COULD have the potential to fall in love with them and marry them and live happily ever after. I get that inkling. It probably has never ever been mutual, nor will it probably ever be, and I’ll never get a chance to even try to prove it, however. But, I still get the inkling that I COULD. All I’m holding out for is the opportunity to meet a few from my love handful and give it a spin someday. I want to marry one of these girls one day and wake up every day happy to see them, and look forward to seeing them every day when I don’t seem them, who I will never tire of kissing or talking to. I’d rather die alone than join the legions of the unhappily married, because that is one of the most depressing things humanity has thrust upon us.

I believe somewhere that an ideal lady exists. Maybe I won’t find her in a Milwaukee coffee shop which sounds like my best bet, but I’m determined to try to find her somewhere. Maybe they are in Europe. I have no idea. It’s just terrifying that 6 billion people are alive, and I’ll never get to meet almost all of them. I’m just hoping that when I grow up just a few years and am living the real life, that I’m lucky enough to meet her. Maybe she’ll be 13 years older than me and Russian, maybe she is a London supermodel, maybe she’s nothing I’ve ever thought of. How the heck am I supposed to know? I’m just a young adult, goddammit. I have no idea what’s coming off.

What? Are you still here? Well, enough of this brooding bullshit. I just realized I forgot to take my Zoloft this morning. That ought to explain this introspective hackwork. Get outta here!

Hatman lives, and Foiblé’s back in town. An update from Reuben

Happy 4th, everybody! Or, maybe I should say…”Happy FOI-th?” That will make sense later if you keep reading. Anyway, I’ve decided today would be a good day to finally write this post because I am going to stay home alone again today because everybody is too busy for me and I don’t have a girlfriend! HAHAHA! So, here’s an update! Update? Ha! More like NO-date, because no girls will go on a date with me! Haha again! See what I did there? It’s a ladies-aren’t-attracted-or-interested-in-me-joke. Anyway, let’s move on from this pitifulness.Big things are going on for Reuben Glaser since I walked away from YouTube, just like I promised. Sure, they are so far fraught with difficulties, tediousness, overwhelming independence, and long hours, but the eye is still on the prize. Quitting YouTube is still one of the darker moments of my life, but I never planned to go idle, and thus, because apparently some people read the things I write on here for some reason, it’s time to fill you in on what I’ve been up to since I branched off, isolated myself from all of my old Internet friends, and fell off the grid to get hard to work, last March or so.

Hatman

First things first is this. This project is nothing new, believe me, but it really, really ended up taking on a life of it’s own that I am just thrilled about. I had the idea for it about 2 years ago, and I originally planned for it to be one of a two part series of pointless documentaries about things nobody knows or should care about. That was the humor. The other was going to be about an obscure extra on an episode of “Are You Afraid Of The Dark” who was on screen maybe 2 seconds who over-dramatically turns his head really fast. I obviously haven’t opted to do that one yet, and I don’t know if I will. Nobody better steal that idea though, damn it!

Either way, they were going to be straight forward, dry 10 minute documentaries where I wanted people at the end to go “Wait…what?” I decided to start with my first idea, which was Hatman. Hatman is an even more obscure and weird cheat code in an equally obscure video-game called Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure. All I wanted to know was the story behind this bizarre cheat.

So, I shot out a few emails, and before I knew it, I had gotten into contact with like half the development team. I’m even friends with one of them on Facebook now. As well, after some digging, I had found the story behind the Hatman cheat, and I am talking like a very specific story with interesting characters and pictures and everything. I knew I wouldn’t even TRY to squeeze that into 10 minutes, so I was at a lost. Then, I got all self-destructive and dramatic and gave YouTube a middle finger and walked away, like I said. Hatman was at that point the only project I had been actively working on, so I had a thought. I no longer had the YouTube time constraints to deal with. Why not just include everything I want to in Hatman and see where it takes me and how long it ends up being? Then I could just ship it off to some Midwest film festivals and see what happens. After my rough cut, it wound up being an hour, and MAN, is it strange. I went all out with this thing, really, and it has a lot of people in it, including a very nice man from England, some teachers, and the world’s greatest extra, who was kind enough to be really nerdy and hilarious for me. In all, I think (THINK) it’s still very funny, and I’ve been told that just this alone far, far exceeds the quality of any of my YouTube videos. I can’t have a fair opinion of it because I have spent probably hundreds of hours and all of my spare time in June editing it, researching it, filming it, writing it and doing literally every single thing all by myself, and it’s tiring. I’m sick of it, but on some days, it feels like the best thing I’ve ever made…and then on the others, I think it’s terrible.

Sneak Peak!

I guess I will find out people’s opinions if any film festivals accept it, and on July 27th, because it’s looking like I will be having a one-time screening at the Alchemist Theatre in Milwaukee on that date. That will be my first actual film screening ever. I’m nervous for maybe walk-outs or pity laughs, but that’s just because I naturally hate myself and don’t have any self-confidence. Maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised. Who knows? Maybe if you are in the area, you can come. It’ll probably be free, because I figure I’ll lose half of all prospective attendees at 1 or 2 dollars. Maybe I’ll see you there! It’ll be a grand old shindig! And if not that, Hatman will make his way to Vimeo eventually. You’ll get to see it one way or another.

Foiblé

Foiblé Fever!

Second thing’s second. Any die-hard Reubnick fans or long-time viewers (which is none of you) will surely remember my 3 part series from 2010′s winter called Foiblé: The Return of Foiblé. It was my first try at a short film, and it was really bad. It was my first 4 film-fest rejections too, which was lousy. But, even if I will own up to how not-good or entertaining it was, filming it was still some of the most fun I’ve ever had in my life, because all else considered, I was filming a MOVIE with my two best friends in the world, Dom and Baltimore. We were all somewhat, quietly disappointed with the outcome, and we were Foiblé’d OUT after like two solid months of just pure Foiblé. So, we practically got like stomach aches whenever we mentioned Foiblé for a few months, but I think the prospect of a sequel and how fun it might be crossed all of our minds at least a few times, moreso with me, because I actually started writing a script. But, I only probably slightly approached the subject, because we were all too busy with being friends otherwise and high-school students, not really thinking too far down the road.

Now, my two best friends are high-school graduates and at the end of Summer, they are going to College. I still am having trouble coming to terms with this. We aren’t kids anymore, you know? Just like that, the brotherhood in real life, and the Foibrotherhood from the film is being shattered, and the opportunities for the high-times are running out. That’s why we all collectively agreed that now would be the time and only time to move forward on making that dreamed-about sequel…

Foiblé: World Tour

Only, we all explicitly agreed we’d only want to do it if it were an actual MOVIE. Feature-lengthed, better equipment, and better script. That would be the only way to do it.

However, pretty obviously, we are poor. We couldn’t do it alone. So, I had the golden idea of getting a Kickstarter, which admittedly, just ACQUIRING the thing was a headache in itself, but that’s a story for another time.

Either way, I got exactly 1 month behind schedule, but I finally launched it last night. So far, we have already raised…$0.00.

My prior experience on the Internet has made that expected. Expected, however, but not accepted. I refuse to just watch that happen. I’m probably powerless, but that’s because it’s just always me alone by myself trying to make these big things happening, and nobody ever takes a clown seriously. That’s why I really, really need help, and I’m not ashamed to say it. This thing needs exposure, and I can’t do it alone. Once again, I will admit, I’m not ever taken seriously. When I try to do something like this, it’s generally met with either “Well, isn’t that cute,” or not a response at all. I’m just bad at reaching out to ask for help, especially when dollars are involved. People clam up and think I’m trying to scam them or something even just when I ask them to help me get exposure. That’s how it is. I’ve already reached out to the terrific Mike Mitchell and the lovely Mindy White to no avail. I think they might just be pretending they didn’t get the emails, which is fine. It’s hard to say no to a desperate stranger. But, they were the aces up my sleeves. I don’t really know who else to turn to. Now I am asking you for help. I’m not explicitly asking you for money (although by all means, be my guest, that’s just as important), I’m just asking you to tell people about it. I try to sparingly ask for help or RTs or anything, because I know how it’s received and there’s a stigma attached. I’m asking now, though. If I don’t get this funding, I can’t make this film, and it’s important for that reason. I want to use some of the money to buy a DSLR, and I just can’t afford it on my own because I don’t have a job and I have to go to college too. I always hold on to hope that someday soon I can make Film into something that pays off in place of a job so I don’t have to work at Burger King and hate my life, and that’s what I’m trying to do. I need this $1,500 to make Foible, and I want to make Foible in itself lucrative, with many more screenings and a release…the works. But I need help, grassroots help, from any of my viewers or followers that I have left. I hate to ask of this, but it’s as heartfelt as I can manage. Please, do this guy a solid, I could use it.

Okay, enough of that! Not really much else to say in this post. If there’s anything else really that anybody’d like to know about that I’ve been up to or something, write me a comment. Its Summer, I would love some interactions. I’ve just been staying home and editing and playing GIRP lately. It gets lonesome hanging out with yourself when you are surrounded by groups of pals. Heyoo! Until next time, goodbye, goodbye!

Here is the Kickstarter once again! Click this thing, please!

Help us! We're poor!

Ryan Dunn is Dead: My Eulogization of the Random Hero

Yesterday was a real challenge for me for a variety of reasons, but I always expected that would happen to me on the day when the inevitable occurred and one of the Jackass guys finally met their fate. I knew it would be really, really hard for me, and to add to that, I never expected Ryan Dunn would be the first to go. I will spare you who I suspected it would be, but I never predicted it would be Dunn, and it hurts considerably more.

Let me put it this way first. When I was a younger, 7th grade aged kid trying to find my identity and not succeeding, trying to do well in school and not succeeding, and trying to be included in groups and not succeeding, I turned to Jackass to cope with it. Or, more or less I was actually introduced to Jackass by no other than my momma, when on my 13th Birthday, absolutely unexpectedly, she gave me the Jackass box-set. I remember the very week when Jackass premiered. I was…well, I was 7. I watched some of it with my dad, and he really seemed to go for it with the same exuberance as when he watches AFV. Back then, I was too prude to even say the name, but I was familiar with the whole thing, specifically Johnny Knoxville, who even then I thought was an awesome fellow. Then, it went off of the air, and I sort of forgot about it until my Mom completely out of the blue sprung it on me that one year. To this day, I consider that one of the greatest gifts I have ever received. It just so happens that, in general, was one of the worst Birthdays of my life. I don’t care to recount what happened, but I ended up holed up in my room crying, and all I had to turn to was that box set. As soon as I began to watch it, I immediately grew a dedication and passion for that show like few things I have ever experienced. I’ll try not to overstate the importance it has had to me, but it changed my life. It absolutely changed my life, and it has gotten me through the darkest times of my life when Ben Folds couldn’t. It was one of my two antidepressants before I started taking antidepressants, and even if, now that I’ve aged and am sitting on the edge of adulthood and independence, I’ve have grown out of things like Jackass, I never have, I never will grow out of Jackass itself. It is too important to me, and I’ll always maintain my affinity to it. Really, I’m confident I love and appreciate Jackass more than anybody really realizes. I have every episode of Jackass, all the movies and their .5′s, Jackass: The Lost Tapes, every season of Wildboyz and Viva La Bam, and the original CKY DVD, and probably more I can’t remember.  I saw the midnight screening of Jackass 3D, and me and my good pal Dom won the gift basket of Jackass merchandise for being the “biggest fans” in a theater that was completely filled. I wore one of my 2 Jackass shirts the day before Ryan Dunn died. I OWN the actual pair of pants Johnny Knoxville wore in Men in Black 2. I was so active on JackassWorld.com when it still existed that I was told in an @reply from whoever runs their twitter now that said he remembered me, like a year after the fact. That still really surprises me, but, you know, flatters me even more.

Now to regress, growing up and trying to find myself as a kid for the past 10 years, as hopefully you can now tell, Jackass has been with me. Its been a real part of who I have become. And the following is something that is really important and something that really set in last night. The reason I ever started making YouTube videos in the first place was because of Jackass. Do you know how much that means? Maybe I’m not particularly proud of that chapter of my life which me and everybody I know calls the Jackass days, but it started me out on the road I’m on today. “Reubnick” as we know it probably wouldn’t be even remotely recognizable (or even ever existent) if it weren’t for Jackass. My videos have evolved, and I’ve even stopped making “videos,” my content has evolved and my sense of humor has evolved. I’m just about to finish my first film to be screened in at least one theater in July, for crap sake! I have really come a long way from those embarrassing skateboard/stunt videos I used to make, and I am very dead-set on doing everything I can to make a living in film. I’m going to go to film school. Film is what I do, and the reason I ever picked up the camera in the first place is because of Jackass. I am absolutely serious. That was my inspiration, and I know I’m not the only one.

Now, Ryan Dunn is the first to fall, and I am as devastated by his death as anybody who I never met could make me. And, the skater-punk rebel loner misfit kid I used to be in my years of most confusion, delusion and being lost while I try to find myself is just crushed and dealt a crippling blow. I idolized all of those guys back in the day, and on some level, I still do. And, I will say it time and time again, if any different group on the planet did the exact same things they do on Jackass now, I’d hate every minute. It is a stupid show. They do stupid, dangerous things nobody should do. They are the first to admit that. Nobody should do the things they do either, and they are once again the first to say it. But, that’s not nearly my favorite part of the show. It’s just the whole crew as a whole. There’s no way to replicate what that crew has. It is beyond special. It’s the friendship and the camaraderie. The loyalty and the care-free nature. The inclusiveness, and the feeling that aside from Bam, all of them are really decent, good-spirited people. Now, that group is forever missing a member, and there is no way for normality amongst that group to return.

I say this because I think more than just Ryan Dunn died yesterday. Much more died. I think has Jackass has officially died. We all sort of assumed it had clocked out for good as we watched the credits of Jackass 3D, but now I think it’s official. You can’t just use 8/9 Jackasses. It will never feel right. And although it has no real effect on me, I think that a certain part of me is gone too, now. The part of me who emulated Knoxville and Dunn because those two were my absolute vision of how to be cool. I was a weirdo who always wore corduroys, and I saw Ryan Dunn wearing jeans and thought he looked like such a cool guy, as well as his plain white tees. I saw how he was such a team player and never lost his cool, and I really admired that and tried to mimic it to get away from having a persona of being the guy with the fiery temper. It worked. And I saw what a good friend Dunn always seemed to be with his close-knit group, and then I wanted to be a really good friend to anybody close to me too. It was a major contributor to my disdain of shallowness. Listen, I know this guy wasn’t a saint, and he was reckless, short-sighted, unpredictable, surly, crass, and maybe had some bad judgement, which was proven in his last act alive. But that changes nothing for me. He’s still just as important. It’s possible to pick out traits you want to use as examples and make them your own while weeding out the negatives, and I did. I did that a lot with Johnny Knoxville more so, but Dunn almost just as much. When I started getting into all things Jackass, I initially pegged Bam as my favorite. That did not last however, and as I got older I got sick of his arrogance, disrespect and immaturity, so I thought about it and moved on to Knoxville and Dunn, and that never changed. Ryan Dunn is the Jackass that you like when you grow up. That’s just the one he is. In a way, him and Johnny seemed to oddly bring some sort of maturity and sanity and control to the whole deal. And, I would hope that all kids in that situation I found myself in moved on to Knoxville and Dunn as two of their favorites, because I really think Knoxville’s attitude is a healthy one to emulate, but even more with Ryan Dunn. I don’t mean the things he did obviously, but the way he always was and carried himself, the way he treated Ape and Phil and everybody else, and how he never really seemed to let anything get to him most of all. Most won’t agree, but I think that with that aspect alone, he makes actually a pretty good role-model. I can’t stress enough that Ryan Dunn was flawed…but so are the rest of them, and so am I, and I’d never want it any other way. Those with flaws are those who are interesting, and the ones with something to prove. Without them, we’d live in a perfectly boring world and everybody would go insane. We need flawed Ryan Dunns to inspire the flawed kids like I was. He’s a realistic role-model. He found a way to go from a drug-addled lost seeming cause to become a millionaire movie-star by messing around, drinking, and hanging out with the buddies, and THAT is inspiration that anybody could do anything they love. And he always kept a level head. I have so much respect and appreciation for him, and yesterday, I really felt like I lost a friend of mine. Once again, I never met him (I always really hoped to), but in the end, I spent more hours watching footage of Jackass and getting to know him without knowing him than I have spent with people I actually consider close acquaintances, and I felt like I lost my pal. It’s the same way I can grow close to people on the Internet I’ve never seen in person, have feelings for women I barely know and have never met, and feel just as bad when something happens to them as when something happens to somebody I see every day. This is why yesterday I was watching Jackass 3D as my private vigil and began to fight back tears and lost. I was hearing Weezer and watching the clip of Dunn looking at the stupid tattoos on his leg, and for the moment, he was like 20 again, and I was 13 again, like when I saw it for the first time. It took me back to the first hour of many years of many hours I would spend with Ryan Dunn, and I couldn’t handle knowing there would be no more years. It is silly, but I’ll never be ashamed to admit how influential, how much of an impact, and how important Jackass has been to me. Especially Knoxville and Dunn. Now, Dunn is gone, and I absolutely hope it is a long, long, long time before I have to say the same about Johnny, because as a crumpled heap on the floor, I don’t know if I’ll be able to manage it. They all get older, I get older, and one did have to eventually be lost to us. I just never wanted to see the day. I’m just feeling even luckier that we’ve still got Steve-O, Pontius, Preston, all of them. I wish them the best luck and health and I hope I still get a chance to meet them before it’ll ever be too late like it is with Dunn.

My thoughts are literally with them all, Ape and Phil, Eric Dunn, and especially with his love Angie, who I didn’t know of before yesterday. I can’t seem to get this off of my mind yet. It’ll happen eventually, but not yet. I don’t expect anybody who knew Ryan to read this, but if I’m wrong, I want whoever the reader is to know I’m taking this hard and that I am right with you.

I miss Ryan Dunn now, I will continue to miss him. I thank him for everything. He’s really been important to me.

I think I seriously am going to get “5+4=9″ tattooed on my foot to honor him someday. I’m hoping at least one person gets that reference.

Boarding up the Windows of the Reubnick Empire

This might be worth opening in another tab as you read this, for effect.

The following irresolute disappointment, shame in many facets of the Youtube community I was once so heavily involved in, utter sadness and hopelessness I feel towards where I have landed and where my friends and colleagues I’ve met through the years have landed at this point, and downright humiliation at the whole system that you are about to read, I feel like should be noted, is by no means new sentiments I’m experiencing. I should make it crystal clear each and every thought and statement in this post has had time to stew over the course of several months, even almost years, and I will regret nothing I say, because I mean it all to the fullest degree. I am going to speak with a lot of candor, and it might offend a specific few people should they read this, and I am aware it only stands to isolate me even more than I have already been from the current “who’s-who” of YouTube, and all of their respective ass-kissers. However, the irrelevance of that fact is now unparalleled in comparison to the degree of how much it might have affected me in the past, due to the breaking and deplorable fallout I have witnessed directed at my (STILL) friend, Peter Coffin serving as a tipping point for me. Seeing the ugly and shameful antics of such a vast amount of anons and even prominent Youtubers at the expense of their own benefit and selfishly raising THEIR profile, and almost just as bad, seeing that it seems besides ZackScott, Pipistrello and myself, nobody has even attempted to come to the defense of Peter, nobody even wants to touch it, which I consider to be unfathomable spinelessness and shallowness of what amounts to the MASSES. This has pushed me over the edge to where I now feel this is the right time to finally post a letter of resignation regarding my desire to have any association with being known as a “Youtuber” from here on out that I had long since tendered, only with a few more current things tacked on.

In the past 5 months, it has come to my attention I have only posted 7 videos, and lets face it, half of those shouldn’t even count. They were lousy. That’s almost half a year now that I have on average posted perhaps 2 to even 1 videos, and as I sit here now, looking at those numbers, I had a pretty shocking realization. That barely upsets me. A while ago, very long ago, in ancient history, my tentative plan was to post a video every week. Tuesday was usually my launch day. Occasionally, I’d miss a week, but I’d get back on that horse and fix the mistake, usually within the week, hitting twitter and youtube to try and pick up the pieces and make up for it. Part of me thought people were actually paying attention to when I posted a video, let alone actually waiting for it and anticipating it. In retrospect, that was not the case. Nobody probably even noticed I had a video schedule that I tried my absolute hardest to maintain persistence in, but to my credit, I kept it up, all until about the beginning of September, when I got another partnership denial. I sparsely updated, sort of, but now it’s just fallen apart. Despite the fact nobody once again probably even slightly noticed my absence from YouTube, I find MYSELF, unthinkably, not missing it really. Lets face the facts. Next September, it will be my 5th YouTube anniversary. I will have been consistently making videos for half of an entire decade. I went through puberty online, for the love of Taft’s ‘stache! 

I went from this puny little piece of nothing to this...less puny piece of...something.

That is a large chunk of my entire life you need to understand, and some of the most pivotal years in a person’s life, and I have put in the work of a full time job just about every single one of those days. Yes, I have made friends, I have generated great memories, I have earned about 15 free pizzas from a sponsored video, and in a fluke, I made 450 dollars on Cafepress in one day. Those are the types of memories I find I can no longer make. As the 2011 era of the internet is ushered in, I find the opportunities to make similar memories have fizzled to nothing as well. And, in all this time, on top of it ALL, what have I earned from the website of YouTube itself? Nothing. Literally nothing. In almost 5 years, the only correspondence I have had with YouTube is countless partnership denials, a few scoldings through email, and one comment that read “nice” on my “Adopt a Feature” video, which incidentally was excluded from the adopt a feature playlist with the rest if the videos, rendering my efforts in that respect pointless, because that video still has some of the fewest views of any video I’ve made. Recently, they have been seemingly taunting me by dangling individual video partnership propositions in front of me but never responding further after gaining my consent. Other than that, nothing. And let me tell you something, there was quite honestly, and I am serious, few things I used to want more in life than a partnership. I’ve said it before, and I’ll still say it. That was, next to school, my number one priority and goal for the greater part of 5 years, and I couldn’t even have that. I used to want it so much it made me sick, but that feeling has taken a 180. I just wanted the legitimacy that came with it so badly, but I couldn’t even have that, and it became apparent long ago I probably would never get it either. It was a simple, modest goal, but for me, it was rendered unreachable. Now, I know that’s not the type of legitimacy I need or really want, and I’ve come to terms with it.

Basically

What is it? What went so wrong? Is it the quality of my videos? Over 115 of them, and nobody is watching them. Just a little over 200,000 views combined. Most of my past friends had single videos with that many views. Most have 1,000,000+ viewed videos, and if all of my videos combined could get 1,000,000 views I’d die happy. But alas, it ain’t going to happen, Chester. My new video alone is a contest open to anybody…and it has 0 entries…and I even anticipated that, that’s how low my standards have become. I doubt it will even end up with not only no responses, but on the 3rd day, no further comments either. It barely hit 200 views.

I’m not complaining. My videos have been used in the campaign to retire John Boehner, and that video was also posted in the tumblr of Mike Mitchell, the guy who drew the Team Coco picture. There are several anecdotes like that I could say, but at this point, stories alone just don’t cut it. I want more, and to risk sounding snotty and pretentious, I feel that with all the work I have invested, I reasonably deserve a little more than 200 views per video and about 7-10 comments from the exact same people, video after video. At this rate, though, that doesn’t seem slated to happen.

"Kid's gotta point, you know."

I’ve hardly had an illustrious career, and I have always felt like somewhat of a Patton Oswalt of youtube. “Oh, that guy? Yeah, he’s funny. I don’t really know him, though. Whatevs.”

It just doesn’t add up anymore, really. In this time, I have seen some of my good friends (some of who are too big for their britches now and don’t have time for the little guys like me anymore) absolutely explode and pass me by on YouTube, and I want nothing more than for them to succeed. Two in particular quit their jobs and became full time tubers. The horrible irony, however, is that one of those two was Peter Coffin, and I can’t tell you how thrilled I was for him. That is now, unimaginably, a laughing point amongst Xiaxue and her cronies. This is something that is being mocked. “Get your real job back” they jeer, “Making vids on youtube isn’t a real job.” That, too, is a stigma that will never sever its ties with Youtube.

I will now talk about another person (who will be kept unnamed) that ties in loosely with this post, and by that I will say he went on to be one of the people who I’ve met that have disappointed me the most gravely. Him and I come from the exact same circumstances, and I was won over by his genuineness and humble nature for quite some time. That was all just a visage I have since learned, and I now look at him as the hypocritical sellout he tries to desperately act like he’s not, a beacon of all things superficial, and a kisser of the asses of ass-kissers, using that humble, “aw-shux-we’re-all-such-good-buds-on-the-internet” demeanor as a ruse for his own benefit. There is nothing genuine about a person who uses interactions with yourself and others as a tool to surpass you and leave you behind, doing the exact kind of cutesy, meme-stroking, cliched tweets and emails to prove that YES, I am one of you! I am a real ‘tuber! Aw, goodie! What a life! What wonderful folks! You’re all such friends! Put me in your videos. Help me get paid now. I sure won’t do the same! Hugz fur all! Luv ya, bruddahz! ;p As far as this unnamed person is concerned, I am also confident he has grown to be one of the best representatives of the kind of fake attitude and sudden crookedness that makes up the majority of what has become the plutocratic plurality of YouTube.

As for my other friends, my genuine friends that I have made on Youtube? They’ve all gone away, left in disgust or discouragement, or they are trying their best to hang on, perhaps by a thread. Literally just about all of them by this point. Those were the people that kept me going, and seeing them drop off one by one is the biggest contributor to driving me to finally write this post. I don’t necessarily claim to know explicitly what the circumstances surrounding their leaving youtube is, but most recently, I see that JustBreanna closed her account. She probably never knew it, but I considered her another one of my favorite Youtubers (and one of the prettiest)…and then, just like that, she disappears. She’s gone. I probably will never hear from her again, and I truly wonder how many people will end up realizing besides me. As for those left, I WILL name drop here, because I don’t care anymore. Where it stands, I only have actual long-standing respect and admiration of about 5 or 6 or 7 Youtubers, although I don’t even know how mutual that is. That list includes, but is not limited to

BDM and Matt from the Trianglechannel, as well as even Urgo, who have stayed loyal viewers and have kept in touch as long as I can remember.

 

 

Then, there is Nalts, who I will always consider my Dr. Demento, and forever a mentor, a friend, and an overall good, decent man. Even Nalts has slowed down as many of the veterans have, maybe knowing they no longer have the clout they had and deserved before YouTube became a world of strictly hyper-active jump-cut vloggers as apposed to ones that actually might drive you to have a genuine invested interest in. Nalts is still around, Nalts is still quality, and Nalts will never go away, and everybody should be thankful for that. There’s just a large difference (like with everything) between 2008-era-Nalts and 2011-era-Nalts, and I think he knows it.

Of course, there is Pipistrello, who probably can relate to most of the things in the post more than anybody else, and who I usually tend to see eye to eye with. Pipi is the only person I see truly say it how it is without fear of the repercussions, and in part, I am taking a page from his book in writing this post, because I have long since walked over the point of no return by now.

Next, and almost most importantly, there is ZackScott, and I hope he knows it (I hope they all know it.) Despite the vibe I’ve always felt I annoy him with long-winded-ness or immaturity or something in some capacity, I’ve never felt duped or subjected to shameless self-promotion by him, and I consider him the most honest, decent man still on Youtube, regardless of whether he finds me obnoxious. It would seem even he has fallen on some variation of hard YouTube times himself, proving even the best aren’t untouchable from the spreading tainting of YouTube. It’s all video-games now, presumably because that’s what people want to watch. Zack, personally, has consistently produced some of the best videos on YouTube. I don’t even know where to start. “The Bird on the Street” maybe? I loved those. “Disney Store Fun?” Almost just as good. But, then as the time ticked away, it just became Otto and Egon and big spiders and hacks, to which I still can’t blame him. The quality is still there, the humor is still there. Zack’s still got it, and he won’t ever lose it. But, all I’m saying is that it’s been like a month since he uploaded a video to his main channel. He has to make it work, and that’s what the people want, and as the time bore on, being experimental stopped being an option, you had to find your specific niche, and make a bunch of different channels. It is no longer the simple times of one channel, maybe 2 at the max. Now, you’ve got to Ijustine yourself and have so many channels it all runs together.  I was never inclined to do that, and it amounts to another fatal flaw of the Reubnick brand.

Rounding out what has dwindled to a very tiny list is PeterCoffin, but given the recent, quite frankly disturbing events from all sides, I’m not sure if it is safe to assume he is out of the game, too. The backlash against him seems rather finite, and rather permanent, to which I absolutely hope he proves me wrong. It would seem my life very often relates back to “The Great Gatsby,” whereas sometimes in actual real life, most days, I feel myself relating and understanding Gatsby, but in other times, I find myself relating to Nick Carroway, and I’m pretty sure I have just watched Peter Coffin take a tumble of Gatsby proportions. I doubt he’s hiding in a bush right now, and I know he didn’t run over a fat lady with a big stupid yellow car, but I wouldn’t know what he’s doing. Peter has helped me out more on YouTube than any other person there has ever been, and I would not have a fraction of the subscribers I have were it not for him. I consider him the best friend somebody I’ve never met in person could be, and not considering who says what and what happens, I will still attest to all of that. But, given the unfounded and seemingly instant all-out crucifixion of him, as of now, I don’t know if he should be figuratively crossed off my exceedingly shrinking list. Also, Greg Benson’s a nice guy, too. Not much I can really say about him, but I always liked him. Bo Burnham, too. Does he really count, though? He doesn’t really make videos too often anymore.

Listen, there’s plenty of people I don’t dislike, and don’t forget it. I am not denouncing the Youtube community, although it may seem like it. I am maybe even just denouncing the corner of the Youtube community I have surrounded myself with for this time, because although I might seem disgruntled, I truthfully do think I have met MORE people I like than people I dislike. I actually know I have. It just so happens that the people I dislike are a lot louder and noticeable most times, though.

Now for me…I’ve, of course, hung on to Youtube far longer than common sense should tell me given the disproportionate response I have always received for everything I’ve ever made. I’ve also never succumbed and caved to being a product of reformed brevity, popping in with a joke and getting the hell out of there before the sheep lose interest. Because of this, I am perpetually stuck. My whole Internet persona, Reubnick, something must just not resonate with people, because my efforts as well as the efforts of others have been all for naught. As I reflect upon all of this, I realize I was never really one of all those people. I don’t think I ever really had enough of a fanbase or companions to be considered a bona fide “Youtuber,” but I always associated with that. But, what was right and what was wrong? What was sincere and authentic and what was just a ploy or deception? Who is there that actually took stock in me as a person instead of just using me as some sort of tool? Do I actually mean anything to anybody, or am I just another character cracking jokes and doing nothing else? These are the questions I don’t think I will ever have answered. You think you know these people, but you absolutely don’t. You talk to them everyday and stay involved with them and their lives, but in the end, you’re just pretending. You don’t really know these people from somebody in a supermarket…it’s rare you even actually get to meet these people in person as it is, and as PeterCoffin has proven, I don’t think anything is really how it seems…there’s just levels of truth and deceit, but you never really know where each individual is placed on that spectrum.

Now, to relate to something I previously said that only puts things into perspective as to how little people seemed to pay attention to me or the things I did, I wrote a book, for crap sake, and it sold less than 5 copies on it’s own. This so-called terrific promotional tool known as Youtube sure helped me out with getting my book, A BOOK, an actual book with pages and numbers and binding and characters and an afterword off the ground.

AN ACTUAL BOOK

It took me 2 years to write the thing and an entire summer to type it out and get it publishing ready, and when that was all said and done, it sold 5 copies. I thought all that time would pay off as soon as I took it to youtube, but my video about it ended up with 11 slanted congrats comments and empty promises, but I know the numbers. 5 people bought it. Does anybody even realize what a disappointment that was? What a financial loss I had? That whole saga was a joke. The people didn’t care, and the people didn’t listen. Same goes for my DVD. It has sold…one copy. To my friend’s mom. Nobody bought it. It took me forever to make that thing. I had to become well-versed in 7 DVD menu softwares, and for what? One copy? I suppose I should detail the significance of the DVD anyway, too.

This DVD, despite being what looks to be the first of an eventual selection of “best ofs” is in fact the culmination of all things Reubnick. By that, I mean quite earnestly that this is the apogee…the plug on the life support of “Reubnick” is in my hand, and it’s on it’s way to being pulled, if you know what I mean. In hindsight, I should have titled it “Reubnick’s Greatest Hits” because that’s usually the name given to what are deemed to be the best examples of a performer’s work, long after the performer has stopped performing.

Let me be candid with you here; this DVD might as well serve the same purpose a yearbook serves at the end of year, or at the end of high-school. It is something you look fondly upon long after you’ve moved on to bigger and better things. Anybody who’s followed me on YouTube, or the even fewer who are STILL following me on YouTube could have seen this like a gorilla on a swingset. I have made it glaringly obvious that “Reubnick” has little left, and this DVD is in part to wrap up this thing I started 5 years ago this September. It’s the compendium, and the assemblage of the best, greatest moments in what has proven to be a hugely unfulfilling, disappointing and often-times actually depressing journey on this website I have grown so bitter towards. As I looked back, considering myself to be by now for all intents and purposes, a YouTube failure for lack of a less harsh word, the 24 videos I have picked for this DVD are what I have decided anybody should consider to be my best. After I have long faded away from the actual Reubnick channel, I just know the other 92 videos will be forgotten, gathering figurative dust as they inevitably transition into online unwatched oblivion, but I will hope that by compiling the 24 videos on the DVD, these ones will be spared from the same fate. As times go on and I have stepped away from the channel and distance myself from “Reubnick” entirely, Reuben Glaser will still be proud of these 24 videos, and this DVD will still be an example of my best work. This DVD I will send by mail and give people I respect, because THESE are the good ones. In that respect, I made this DVD for the sake of myself in that way…but that still doesn’t mean you should tell yourself there’s no reason to buy it!

Now I’m just ranting obviously, but I hope you people, whoever, if anybody is reading this, can just see where I’m coming from, and that you don’t consider this just a fame hungry whiner whining. This is my life. My reputation amongst ALL of my peers is that guy who makes Youtube videos, and I’m decidedly not even good at THAT, per se. I am currently in a struggle to subtract “Youtube” from that description, and from all other facets of my life. I still want to be the guy who makes videos, just different videos. Short films, perhaps…I just don’t know how easily that can be attained without a place to put the stuff. But as far as my experience on Youtube, actually, when you look at it, I should quite frankly be considered the opposite of a success. It’s like the politician who goes through hell and back running a campaign and loses anyway. I am the Dukakis of YouTube. I have and will forever continue to miss the boat everybody else gets on.

Make no mistake, I am a very unsatisfied person in general. I have a very low opinion of myself, and why should I not? I have no girlfriend, and very few actual good friends as it is. My network of people who are important to me (and vice versa) in general is tiny. My sister moved out today and now I will be even lonelier. I am not especially smart or remarkable in any way, and what it comes down to is that all I have found that I am good at is writing pointless fiction and acting in and editing videos, and in that regard, I have abysmally failed to make anything of it at this place in my life. So, it just sits around as a pointless ability that I would much prefer exchanging for something practical like being able to competently do ANYTHING in math. It makes no difference in life if I can write (subjectively) interesting things well. That’s even debatable. When you look at a variety of authors and screenwriters, I am clearly sub-par. So, with that in play, I am worthlessly average in a way, and I need some sort of validation to keep me going. I’m not getting that anywhere, ESPECIALLY not on YouTube. I get the opposite of validation from YouTube, all it succeeds in doing these days is making me feel considerably more lousy about myself than I already do, and why would anybody reasonably continue to willingly pool so much consistent effort into something that does that? That’s my problem. I can think of no credible answer to that.

This just isn’t easy, though. People neglect to realize how important being “Reubnick” has been for all this time, and it physically hurts me inside, in my heart, withdrawing from this. People think its just a little kid playing little kid games, but it is decidedly more than that. It has been my life, and my identity, and I quite honestly don’t know what else I can do well besides politics and political commentary, but there are even less ways for me to utilize that and make it work. I don’t know how to do anything else. I don’t know where to go from here, and I think I need to do a lot of work to find myself as I try to leave “Reubnick” behind. To reiterate, I’m at quite a crossroads right now, and I have to decide if this is something I would be wise dedicate my life to. My mind is running wild and I am thinking a hundred thoughts a minute, but shaving Youtube away from my life will give me clarity and some sort of weight off of my shoulders. Nothing makes me happier than making these videos, but that’s only the half of it. Interaction is the key ingredient, and if nothing else, it comes down to an argument of motivation and time dedication. Why devote so much to something that only loses me time and money if nobody is any longer watching or appreciating it? It makes no sense. No, no sense at all. I have no motivation. Plus, its hard to say what will encourage me to keep creating content at all if I know its not being seen. I DON’T do videos for the sole enjoyment of myself, I need others to enjoy it. I also have a bad history of film-festival rejections, and that leaves me with very few options that enable me to do and get what I want. Being an alderman or state senator someday just seems like a much more practical option sometimes.

No matter how hard this is for me, I just consider it best to be up front and say this all right up. YouTube isn’t good for me anymore. It makes me angry and feel like an utter failure, and I need to move on, and now is the right time. I’m no longer having fun, and I haven’t been for a LONG time. I’d like to let it be known that as of now, I think “Reubnick on Youtube” is dead. Reuben Glaser lives on, and Reuben Glaser is what I want you to get now. I no longer want to consider myself a “Youtuber” because just that thought makes me feel painful emotions. YouTube now is not the YouTube I loved. It’s a cold business, with dollar signs being the only thing that bears any significance amongst the site and the new “community” of a bunch of RayWJ’s and likewise money-minded kleptocrat douches, and I no longer belong. “Reubnick” is from the old school of Youtube, and now “Reubnick” is in the graveyard of ‘tubers past, just a footnote on this site’s history, despite a firm belief I was one of the many who laid the groundwork and made this site what it is who never got the respect and gratitude we deserved. What do I get as payment for all I’ve invested? Months of monotony and zero comments only to be broken by some goddamn carnie getting offended by a video I made 2 summers ago hustling me and spamming me with threats and accusing me of “crying to mommie.” Does that sound like something inviting that makes you want to come back? No, it shouldn’t, but for some reason I put up with that kind of bullshit for THAT long, and I won’t do it anymore. Either it’s a troll saying “FAKE” or a person telling you to commit suicide knowing that hiding behind anonymity entitles them to be as ruthless as they never had the guts to be in real life when they suffered the same treatment, or even rednecks and carnies who genuinely wish you death because you jumbled their brains with big words and made light of such trivial things deserving of no respect such as Bigfoot and the carnival. The list is endless. I resent the nasty politics of the YouTube community, and the unfounded double-negatives, shallowness, unforgiving nature, and short-attention span. People say stand-up comedians are troubled, disgruntled and sad, sad people. Look no further than Youtube for that very thing, only magnified. YouTube is the bottom rung, and I want out and away from exposure to such ludicrousness. Only 4channers are lower.

I will not be going to Vidcon, nor will I even have the desire to shell out the money to go to any other gathering now. In fact, few things sound less appealing than being surrounded with this attention-funneling, photo-bombing, overly intrusively hugging, camera-being-shoved-in-your-face-and-being-told-to-be-funny, pathetic, miserable and insecure gang of Dawson-brown-nosing misfits. I don’t care what the Green brothers spout out about acceptance and inclusiveness and companionship amongst underdogs, with Vidcon, those guys just help in succeeding to get the ridiculous monopoly of YouTube in one big building so they can try and out-funny and out-sincere one another, all with a huge price-tag, while I’m sure they all gossip and snivel sub-consciously along popularity ranks as soon as the other’s backs are turned, as I’ve heard they have been doing at PlaylistLive, or whatever half-baked BS gathering they are having on one of the trendy coasts this week. There is no room for the underdogs, especially now. They’ve always gotten shirked, and they now only stand as an inconvenience best left ignored. I hope that for those reading this, those who will consider me a turncoat and a traitor now, I hope you take into account that what I have said, largely, are things that can’t be denied, and although you will never admit it, won’t acknowledge it, and blacklist me for it, I think there is a mutual understanding amongst all the ranks that this is how things are now. There is no heart left like in 2008, when OkGo was still the force to be reckoned with, and Nalts and Zipster were deservingly plastered all over the front page. YouTube now is a lonely place in large part, of ignorance, mob-mentality, insincerity, and insecurity, playing only a game of chess with partners as part of the bigger game, the numbers game. I want you all to at least think, for one moment, if maybe going the direction I’m going is a good idea. Just walking away, so as to not contribute or even be associated with the big problem at hand. I would be a fool to hope for that, though, because if one thing has been ingrained in me at this point, it’s that the YouTube experience is worlds different from partners and everybody else, and the rift, the gap, the divide grows miles longer each day. So it would make sense for a lucrative (whatever that would constitute) or an increasingly lucrative partner to have no understanding of my numerous complaints, but with a contrast so stark that I could even throw out the obnoxious phrase of the “haves/have-nots,” and perhaps even liken the non-partners to second class citizens, that’s how extreme of a divide it now feels. Yet, the boys and girls club of folks making enough money to barely scrape by on whoring one’s self out and practically being reduced to the knees to beg for a name drop will see this, if they’ve made it that far, and claim I am just a Helen A.S Popkin outsider who doesn’t “get it” and is just jealous…although, in a tweet, that will probably be dumbed down to something cutesy like “that kid’s just a hater who’s jelly. Just ignore him. Y can’t we all get along :(“

The fact of the matter is that I DO GET IT, and I “get it” more than most. And what I “get” is that Youtube is no longer Youtube, nor will it ever return to its former glory.

The blind and grinning mouth-breathers in denial who I think might have the propensity to tweet something as used-up and pulled out of the arsenal as that tweet from above, I have since unfollowed as my first attempt to wash my hands and move on from this community that has suffered a fall of grace almost nearing being comparable to that of Rapture. Don’t let the potatoes touch the peas, however. Aside from the seedy underbelly of of gutless idiots and cowards who have been mercilessly railing on Peter Coffin or would be prone to and have a pattern of engaging in similar archaic shows of thinly veiled internal self-loathing and envy, my anger is directed strictly at YouTube, and this post details precisely that. Twitter remains untouched, and I will carry on as usual on there in due time as I recover from this speed bump. The people I appreciate on there far outweigh those of YouTube, but seeing as YouTube will no longer be a part of my life worth even acknowledging as apposed to looking back with a grimace, it means nothing. So, the NicholasMegalises and the Lulograms and MindyWhites and TimHeideckers and the many others, I still love you. Those who I feel are contributing to the corruption and selling-out of YouTube, I no longer follow you. It’s over. You lose. Take it for how little it’s worth, but with Reuben, you’ve blown it. I have no remaining respect left for those I unfollowed, and you all ought to be ashamed.

So, the point of this is to tell you, in excruciating detail, why YouTube is no longer a priority to me. The pieces just aren’t going together and they never will. I have seen many Youtubers I like just throw in the towel and give up, just walk away from YouTube. I never could understand why, I always considered them quitters, but now I understand why. No, I am not a quitter, and I’m not walking away from YouTube just yet…I’ve still got a few videos left, and even outside of Youtube, I won’t stop making videos…but I just want to say, don’t be surprised when I stop coming around on there all together. I’m doing the same thing those people did, only I’m not doing it quietly. I am going down loudly and with exacerbation.  I hope this post, if nothing else, will someday serve as a study of characterization, boiling points and deterioration of something excellent, and even warn kids at the age I was when I started YouTube to turn around and maybe find a better community, because if you don’t, you will just get yourself bruised.

I’d always say somethings gotta give, but in the case of Youtube, that is staggeringly untrue, I’ve found out. How long was I supposed to chase this pipe dream with so much effort when I’ve got a real life to live? I need to get a real job, earn real money, and concentrate on real college. YouTube is yielding very little to me these days, and I’ve learned by now that this sort of thing is not temporary. I’ve only really not been “stuck in a rut” for like 3 months, which is unacceptable.

I will not however get a job like this. That would be the worst.

I’ve got a whole life to live, and I’m cheating myself from that by wasting time on YouTube, slowly losing more and more faith. There are other things for me and other ways to still write fiction and act and edit and direct, and I will find them, because regardless of what they are, they will be without a shadow of a doubt more fulfilling and accepting and satisfying than Youtube has proven to be. And when I find them, I hope you are still with me, and that you haven’t been turned off by my antics and opinions in this post. But, I would like to bring you back in time to the Conan O’brien/NBC fiasco to prove a point. Although it’s not really equatable, and I am leaving on my own terms, and nobody is paying attention, nor will they, and I am sure I look like the ass in this scenario, I would like to remind you what happened to Conan after he left NBC and sort of start over. He did not fall on his face. It took him half a year, but the guy landed back on his feet, stronger than ever, and I would like to flatter myself and maybe consider myself the Conan of youtube, for many reasons despite body-build, and comedic and personality similarities you might have noticed. I intend to defy the odds and somehow, some way, do better for myself and be happier outside of the thing that I started out on and gave me a place to grow and then subsequently crash, and I hope you will all join me, all of the ones who matter.

I truly didn’t want to fall off the grid, but I watched it slip away in my grasp without anything I could do. In the months of sporadic updates, it’s like I don’t exist anymore. I do not get the views, nor do I get the comments. Without even realizing it, I haven’t been a “Youtuber” for months. I never did fit in, but it was obvious months ago I had lost what I had gained, with no way of recovery on that site. I am only acknowledging that right now.

So, that’s what’s up. I am really only working on a few video projects right now, and after that, it’s whenever I feel like it, with no outside promotion to lose my time on. No schedules, and no more busting my ass for something that doesn’t merit it. Hell no. Do not think for a moment I will disappear, though. My twitter and other accounts aren’t going anywhere. “Reubnick the Youtuber” is though…he’s going to the YouTube afterlife where he belongs, along with everybody else who has charred and spoiled the website, inflicting irreparable damage. I will never say I quit, but no matter how poorly received this post is and no matter how blackballed I get, I will promise I am taking one hell of a hiatus at the least, and unless something drastically improves, that is my new philosophy. I will make it clear there are still diamonds in the roof on youtube and all sorts of lovely people, but as I browse, they just seem incredibly few and far between, akin to finding something entertaining on VH1 instead of something exploitative and obnoxious and desultory.  You won’t find those people on the front page, either, and now, you will especially never find ME on the front page either, be it in the form of me looking at the front page or me physically being featured on the front page, because…well, because I am sort of walking away. Please, don’t be too annoyed at me, and don’t turn on me if I have put my foot in my mouth and insulted everybody even as I try to be delicate, because I love many of you, and this isn’t an infinite exit. If not on Youtube, like I said, I promise you will easily find me somewhere else, and I hope you will.

but I'm still standing.

But I will close it with this, and the lyrics to a song that the best song-writer I’ve ever seen wrote. Ben Folds apparently managed to have unintentionally wrote the best biography of my Youtube career there could be, short and sweet and better than I could do, and he calls it “Working Day.” But, that after this first.

Peter Coffin and I were emailing each other a few days prior, trying to organize another collab to hark back to the glory days, and it escalated with this brief retort and my response, in short.

Peter: I really don’t know what I am doing anymore hahahahahahaa

Reuben: Well, I’m glad I’m not the only person who doesn’t know what they are doing

And I had no idea how accurate that back and forth would prove to be just about a week or 2 later. I do not know what I am doing anymore, I have no idea what to do or how to do it, and simply put, that scares and overwhelms me. But, I DO know it’s not YouTube…The Youtube days are in my past from now on, and I implore many people to follow suit, and just abandon YouTube if you aren’t getting the satisfaction you want and you, too, feel like an outcast who doesn’t want to be chained to only finding success through fabrication and talking about mundane occurrences with an inflated sense of enthusiasm, and let it be what it has proven, despite it’s best efforts, it cannot escape the shadow of being; caffeinated vloggers begging for comments and people falling down, being made a fool of in some sick pursuit of solely schadenfreude amusement, and getting hit really, really hard where it counts.

In the genitals.

“I can do this, really, I’m good enough
I’m as good as them, but don’t take it from me
Ask my friends, ask my sister
They all think my stuff is great
Up there with any of them
I just need a break

I’m a genius, really, I’m excellent
Better than them, I kick their asses
All of them, even that guy
Who thinks he’s fuckin’ cool
Gets all of the attention
He doesn’t sell shit does he

Some guy on the net thinks I suck and he should know
He’s got his own blog

I’m a loser
I’m a poser
Yeah really, it’s over
I mean it and I quit
Everything I write is shit

I’m a loser
And a poser
It’s over, it’s over
I mean it and I quit
Everything I write is shit

Hey, hey
It’s a working day
Hey, hey
It’s a working day

Thank you and good night.

But do feel free to keep in touch.

An Open Message to JB Van Hollen

I woke up today to find that JB Van Hollen, Wisconsin’s Attorney General, has succeeded in dashing any notion in my head that as far as this state’s republicans go, he is one of the reasonable ones. One of the fair ones, and not a puppet who only votes along party lines. I don’t know why I thought that. I think I just wanted to believe it, for some reason, to try and persuade myself that there was even merely ONE responsible, honest and principled Wisconsin republican. In fact, he instead decided to misuse his power and COMPLETELY change my mind last night by what has been pretty much his first action regarding the NON-FISCAL budget repair bill, which up until now, he had been annoyingly mum towards, probably so as to not isolate either side.

But, what did I do?

A La Crosse news station posted this a few hours ago.

Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen says he plans to appeal Friday’s temporary restraining order blocking the Secretary of State’s publication of the budget repair law, pending permission from the Court of Appeals.

And, with that, there you have it. I have been standing by, waiting to see which side JB would take. I probably should have assumed and expected, given the pattern his colleagues have created, that he would do what everybody else with a little “R” after their names have done, and that is turn a blind eye to the obvious, blaring and undeniable illegalities that the republicans have committed, yet try to thwart any efforts from any other side to expose this fact. Here I was, for WHATEVER REASON, thinking that as JB had the ball in his court, maybe the man would do the right thing and weigh in on the crimes that Scott Walker has committed, as well as the Fitzgeralds and all of the other legislators who are participating in the demoralizing and humiliating destruction of this state. I thought JB Van Hollen would be the one ray of light who would admit that despite belonging to the republican party, his colleagues had committed crimes. Actual crimes. But that didn’t happen. JB Van Hollen opted to misuse his power himself and come across just as culpably as the others. JB Van Hollen, as far as I am concerned, has sucked away all the respect I ever had for him. He’s just like the rest.

A unique relationship I have with JB Van Hollen, however, is that he follows me on twitter. He has for quite some time, since the summer, and up until now I even took a little pride in that fact. Your guess is as good as mine as to whether he has ever even read anything I’ve ever said or if he has any idea who I am or if he even knows he has a twitter account and the things you are capable of doing on it, though, but I do.

I have the ability, seeing as he follows me, to send him direct messages. Technically, 980 people have the ability to do that…but I couldn’t tell you if many of them have. So, I have decided to utilize this, this which should be a direct way to interact and contact a state politician with influence. I did so this morning. I sent him the following messages, give or take a few words here and there that I trimmed out to meet the 14o character guideline.

@JBVanHollen JB, I just read about your decision to use your power to attempt to appeal the restraining order on this reprehensible budget bill. (I accidentally said REpeal to him. Full disclosure!)

@JBVanHollen You are not on my side, it would seem, but you are firmly on the side of the gentlemen who have succeeded in jeopardizing my future and sense of all security.

@JBVanHollen I am disappointed in you and your staggering blindness towards all the flaws of this bill, not to mention it’s obvious illegality.

@JBVanHollen This extends beyond politics, this is right and wrong. You had a choice to choose between those who need fighting for and those who never will, and you selfishly and disgustingly chose the latter.

@JBVanHollen It is inconceivable to me that by your actions, you could still have some belief you did something just as apposed to what is plainly corrupt

@JBVanHollen and I implore you to try to explain to me why you think this bill is NOT a direct attack on me and my friends and family.

@JBVanHollen Please no typical circular answers and please don’t ignore me. I know you follow me, and ignoring me would only further perpetuate my opinions.

@JBVanHollen and I promise you, I will listen, and I will be fair. Please, tell me your side. Try to convince me.

You don’t need to be the one to tell me he probably won’t read these and that I have a better chance of marrying Rosie Jones someday than to elicit a response from him, but stranger things have happened. The ball is once again in his court, and I expect him to squander and blow the opportunity to redeem himself like he has already done before. He’s had practice at doing that. Response or not, I hope he takes the initiative of at least unfollowing me at this point. He has acted in a fully corrupt manner, and having said that, I believe him to be a crook. This is a matter of both sides potentially acting illegally, and I’m not going to pretend that, from a STRICTLY juridical standpoint, perhaps Maryann Sumi doesn’t have the authority to make such a ruling. However, this is an argument of FAIRNESS, as the republican senators, Scott Walker and whoever else involved, participated in illegal acts of their own, things that far exceed the unethical perception of Maryann Sumi. Things that for all intents and purposes are uncalled for and unacceptable. JB Van Hollen had an even greater responsibility to intervene in that situation, too, but he refused. He ignored it, and he did NOTHING, obviously because of political affiliations. That means, indisputably, that he is in fact nothing more than a bleary-eyed and petty enabler, just as crooked as his boss Walker. A criminal. The part of me who had trust and respect in him has died, as did any notion that he is a decent politician and man.

Ya blew it.

Some good links for you to read about this.

http://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/news/2011/03/18/appeal-coming-in-court-injunction.html

http://www.wxow.com/Global/story.asp?S=14281984

http://host.madison.com/news/opinion/mailbag/article_4dc0b3f4-dd23-5dca-ac42-1c8436293483.html

...and that's all from Reubnick!

“Thank you and good night!”

Scott Walker: SCREWING EVERYTHING UP!

What did I tell you? What did I tell everybody, as I walked around in my Tom Barrett shirt and took every opportunity I had for 4 months trying to spread the word? What did I say, which was responded to by jeers, as I snuck up behind Scott Walker at the State Fair and got on the local news? I said it, to everybody who would listen, weeks from the election, and months and months and months prior. I’ve been saying this for literally years. I said Scott Walker will ruin this state. He will destroy Wisconsin. He will be the most caustic, ignorant, destructive Governor this state has ever seen in it’s history. He has been governor not even a month yet, I believe, and he has just about proven me completely correct. Wisconsin is open for business? That’s what has been slapped onto the Wisconsin State Sign, now. I am confident that is the single most ironic thing that this hapless, evil moron has ever said, even beating “the train has left the station in Wisconsin.” Turn on the TV. Run a Google search. Look at what he is doing. How can Wisconsin be open for business when anybody even associated with business doesn’t even get to have a say in the business OF their business?

"I want 2 be ur next gov"

Let me lay this out for you. I am not going to even touch on my problems with his handling of the High Speed Rail and how he literally walked away from no-strings-attached free money (as much as I’d love to). I am going to strictly talk about the State Worker Union Bill he has proposed and his overall plan to “slash” the budget of Wisconsin, by cutting essential and important jobs and services…not to mention the University of Wisconsin (the college I intend to attend after 2012) where many teachers are in jeopardy, as well as public school teachers, MY CURRENT TEACHERS, (and all other employees) who will then have to pay much more money for their pensions and health insurance out of pocket. Funding for public schools will face a crippling blow and the people who are preparing me for the rest of my life, the people preparing this entire generation to someday lead the nation, will have to pick up the pieces. Just today, the atmosphere around Wisconsin was like nothing I’ve ever felt. Aside from the satisfying undercurrent of “I-Told-You-So!” I have never seen my teachers like this. I cannot even sum up into words how absurd it was to see these upstanding, level-headed, self-respecting role-model individuals ready to fight, ready to protest outside of Alberta Darling’s office tomorrow. They are willing and ready to protest. One of my teachers was particularly not in a good way. He is usually a jovial, happy guy, who laughs anything off. Still, today he stood in front of us, telling us how he could barely sleep last night. How he wrote to all his friends, family, and anybody politically who might have any influence, whatsoever. He just grasped at anything in an effort to thwart this ludicrous bill which will stand to ruin lives, lay double digits of teachers off, and all for eliminating a measly 8% of the deficit. It was something I’ve never seen before to see him act like that.

Here is what all of us Wisconsinites are looking at.

State Worker Union Bill: Scott Walker has proposed a bill that eliminates the right of state workers to negotiate their wages, hours, vacations, sick days, benefits and on and on. Definitively and swiftly deleting the notion that state workers can have any say in what rights and freedoms they can have on their jobs, leaving them only with the option of “Do what we say, or get outta here, Jack!” As well, Scott Walker aims to cut the budgets of our already hurting public schools and colleges, putting us even farther at the bottom of the barrel. Teachers will lose jobs, classes will grow to probably what will be a minimum of 35 students per class, and schools and educational facilities will, for the sake of an analogy, burn, burn, burn.

The Corruption: It should be obvious, but this eliminates pretty much all rights of the Wisconsin worker. Unions will become kaput.

“Make no mistake about it, war has been declared on unions in Wisconsin,”

All Unions will be gone. No more Unions. This includes TEACHERS, NURSES, TRANSIT WORKERS (like my Dad previously was), POSTAL WORKERS, POLICE, FIRE DEPARTMENT…Oh, wait, nevermind. Not the police and fire department. They are oddly enough excluded from this bill. They also endorsed Scott Walker’s campaign for Governor. Oh, but Scooter says he isn’t playing politics. He is doing it because, simply enough, “The State’s Broke.” Even though he was quoted as verbally said that, I bet he didn’t include the comma, either. Have you seen that guy’s twitter? It’s pretty much completely unintelligible.

It's pretty obvious this bozo never graduated from college.

All jokes aside, do you guys fully fathom the gravity of this situation? Do you know what this means? Simply by introducing this Bill, Scott Walker has created a noxious, toxic work milieu in this state, and if this thing passes, Holy Herbert Hoovers, I don’t even want to imagine the fallout from those who don’t use golden toilets and private jets.

"KAY, Kan u plz leave me alone nao?"

On a related note, something I would also like to bring up is this: Does anybody see any parallels to Wisconsin and Egypt right now? They are there. They are faint, but they are there, and the people of Wisconsin can do everything they can to make them more vivid if they are willing. First, we have a corrupt, slimy, arrogant demagogue of a Governor who is bleeding into Dictator status, we have no regard for the citizens of the territory he presides over, and the citizens are being completely ignored, aside from a few vague, circular comments that the leader pulled out of his arsenal of general comments in a half-assed effort to appease the people, we have unrest that is building pressure faster than you can believe, we have PROTESTS OF ALL DIFFERENT GROUPS, taking place ON A SQUARE, and we have THREATS FROM THE LEADER OF CALLING THE NATIONAL GUARD TO DEAL WITH THE PROTESTS. Egypt was like a Volcano. Granted, it was country-wide, all the way in Africa, but still, it took 30 years of building pressure in the volcano until it finally erupted. Until, when it all came down to it, all Egypt needed was a final little push. They just needed one last prod until it popped. The same could very well be true for Wisconsin, and we can speed it up 29 years and 11 months, if we try. We just need somebody to step up to the plate. Do we need an ElBaradei? Is what what we’re missing? Yes, it is. We need an opposition leader, or anything to be the final push, and we need more peaceful protests on the double! The mood is right for any form of revolution, it’s happening world-wide. Who is to say the dairy state can’t get behind that? I’m not a voice loud enough to be heard alone, but if a bunch of people yell in unison at Scott Walker, and keep it up a long time, there’s no way he won’t hear us, even if he shoves a brown paper bag over his smug head. I’m just a high school student, I can’t even vote, but I can have my opinions. I can have my passion, my integrity, and my pride for this state that I love and grew up in that I am watching implode upon itself while Scotty and his rich friends watch while playing golf. There needs to be unity from all people like us. There are already some terrific facebook pages that have been set up. (Stop Scott Walker, Recall Scott Walker, Impeach Scott Walker, and my favorite, Scott Walker is a Douche.)

"But im a hero, tho"

Don’t let this pathetic man get away with any of his continual overstepping of the boundaries. I have friends…in fact, we all in Wisconsin probably have friends, close friends, teacher friends, general worker friends, middle and lower class friends who will be devastated, absolutely devastated, financially and securely, if this Bill passes. People with families who are barely scraping by as it is. This is the state of Fighting Bob La Follette, who I consider to be one of the best politicians of all time, and definitely our best Governor. Scott Walker stands for everything Robert La Follette, and the entire La Follette family in its entirety, did and does not stand for. Wisconsin is the home of the Progressive Party. We need to keep the fighting spirit of Robert La Follette puttering on strong. We need to be fighters ourselves.

In his autobiography, Robert La Follette writes at length about his rivalry with “Boss Keyes,” a stern and old-fashioned man of political prominence in his day. He engaged in many things which were, for all intents and purposes, corrupt and crooked for all those besides the men that scratched his back, and he tried his best to foil and shut up La Follette at every turn. Exceedingly angered by this man, and tired of being ignored and brushed off, La Follette wrote the following.

If modified just a tiny little bit, I think it’s something we should all get behind, if you feel anything like I feel.

This Bill hasn’t been passed yet, but if it does, my friends, please don’t waste a single minute in holding back on letting the incompetent, selfish, self-involved Scott Walker know he has opened up the floodgates in Pandora’s box. Protest, send him letters, and by all means, flood his phone (608-266-1212) and SPAM HIS EMAIL ADDRESS with well constructed complaints at Govgeneral@wisconsin.gov.

Go to protests, too! You already missed a good one in Madison today, but they are springing up state-wide! I myself am going to go to one outside of Alberta Darling’s office tomorrow. Make sure the legislators, and general politicians who can make any difference, hear us, too. Let everybody know that Scott Walker is a piece of garbage and that this bill is despicable. In short, give them a hard time until they respond, and peacefully, give Scott Walker Hell.

If this Bill does pass, let Skippy know we won’t have any of this. Something will happen.

Here are a couple of nice things for you guys to read about this, too.

http://www.thenation.com/blog/158522/dictator-governor-sets-out-cut-wages-slash-benefits-and-destroy-public-unions

http://www.first-draft.com/2010/11/scott-walker-is-a-dumb-motherfucker.html

http://www.examiner.com/norml-in-madison/thousands-of-state-employees-head-to-wi-capitol-for-showdown-with-walker

http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/editorial/article_c8dc2189-1d6c-510b-9244-76d79987a088.html

“Thank you, and good night!”