Karl Klockars

"Make me an offer! Bidding starts at $50!"

You find wisdom in the strangest places.  I found it while watching “I Love Money” on VH1, which has to be more devoid of humanity and intelligence than any other place on your TV screen.  So if you can find it there, you can find it anywhere.  Of course, it wasn’t during the actual show, so take it with a grain of salt.

It was actually during one of the endless promos they run during the breaks.  Bravo does this too – if you have gargantuan ratings for one of your shitty reality shows, don’t you squeeze as much cash out of those breaks as you can?  Or do you just hype the new shitty reality shows…that you’ll just run more promos all the way through anyways?  I don’t know – I’m not a sales expert.  But whatever.  It must work for ‘em, because there I was, watching Brooke Hogan.

And she taught me about myself in a way that ten years of self-examination and hindsight had failed to show.

So, how can one nitwit blonde with a TV show teach me all about life?  Very simple.  I saw, reflected back at me, was myself at about 19-20 years old.  I, however, am not a towhead with overinflated breasts and a former professional wrestler for a father – but after that, the similarities are incredible.

"No, the vomit goes in the other hot tub. Tee-hee! Parties are great!"

What I saw was a kid who had a party.  This kid thought that the party was the party to end all parties.  That all parties were awesome.  There was wanton destruction, rampant insanity and all-around debauchery.  The promo for the episode was a heartwarming tale of Brooke learning to deal with responsibility, and what happens when you throw a crazy shindig and you don’t know what you’re doing.

And I realized – this is something that a lot of idiot kids have to go through in life.  Not many people end up with a penthouse Miami condo when they’re 20, but a little window dressing is allowable for the world of television.  So many people I know threw these huge blowout crazypants parties and think that they’re recreated the wheel and topping the internal combustion engine for “best idea ever.”

When they’re not.  They’re boring.  And completely unoriginal.  And none of them know it.

I never knew it, believe me.  I was hanging out in my own particular hovel and getting a half-dozen other idiots to join me whenever I could.  I was destructive, I was loud, I was a mess, and it was a pretty regular scene to have anywhere from 30-300 people over on any given night to get completely faded.

"No one has every partied like we're partying right now. I'm sure of it."

And I thought it was the greatest thing on earth.  I actually believed that no one else had considered moving out at a young age for the nearly-sole reason of getting sideways on a nightly basis.  It was like creating the electric knife, or coming up with Kool-Aid or botox or something.  Perhaps this sounds like sour grapes from a cranky-before-his-time 29 year old.  Maybe it is.

I can’t barely tolerate half-sober 25-year-olds in the bar anymore.  All that hope gleaming in their eyes gets on my nerves.  And a bunch of barely-legal nitwits with a head full of hooch and inhibitions tossed off like cheap socks?  I’d sooner hang than put myself through that.  This is not the point.  But we’re getting closer to it.  Just hang in there.  (But stay off my lawn.)

Back to Brooke:  In the show, there was a moderate amount of destruction, people hopping into the hot tub fully clothed (don’t these kids worry about their cellphones?  complete abandon!) and a general mass of young drunks who don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground about maintaining a regular level of drunkenness.  It takes about 5 years to figure out where your wasted level is, and these kids are still looking.

And she freaked out.  She lost her shit.  She pulled a classic move (or should have thought to):  getting the cops.  Or at least security.  I seem to remember calling the cops on a couple parties of mine (or I should have thought to) and it’s usually a wise decision.  Unless the dog has already been violated and that puddle you just stepped in feels a little chunkier than usual, that is.  At that point, let it all out, kiddo:  you’re going for broke.

"Stop looking at her butt, dad. She's my age."

Then, boom.  Party over.  I’m sure there was some sort of warm, icky-gooey father-daughter conversation about having people over and being responsible and having parties when Dad’s not around to ogle Daughter’s friends.  (I mean, c’mon, if you’re Hulk Hogan and you’re going through a divorce, like you’re not going to eyeball some of your daughter’s ho-bag friends.)  And somewhere on the editing room floor, I’d like to think that there’s a scene where lil’ Brooke comes to a realization.  And that realization is this:  Nobody Cares.

There comes a point in every young drunk’s life that says:  Nothing I am doing is special.  No matter what kind of Motley Crue debauchery you’re pursuing and no matter what kind of whiskey-and-cocaine rock star you imagine yourself to be, at some point you’re going to be cleaning up puke.  Yours, or someone elses.  And you’d better hope it’s yours – at least you know where it’s been.  It’s all old news.

At some point along the journey, I had figured this out to a certain extent.  But thank you, Brooke.  Your general empty-headed idiocy has helped me see that the awesome party-throwing Busch-Light swilling former me was just another stupid kid lost in a bottle thinking he was special for a moment.  But we’re not.  We’re all the same behind the haze of light beer and cigarette smoke.  Hey, Sigma Pi McBackwardsHat:  It’s great to have a good time and go through record numbers of kegs.  Just know this:  It’s been done before.