Simon pays a visit to Giulio Gerardi

I hit ‘random article’ on Wikipedia and then rant about whatever I see. This week: Giulio Gerardi.

Buongiorno amici, oggi stiamo parlando di Giulio Gerardi, un bravo Italiano che ha sciato per suo nazione in l'olimpiadi. Or, to translate into English: Wikipedia doesn't have a lot of information in English about Giulio Gerardi. Being the enterprising polyglot that I am, I immediately searched his name in the Italian version of the site.

Do you know what I found?

Nothing. There isn't even a stub for his sorry ass.

He wasn't a slouch either, he finished third in the 1937 world championships as part of the Italian team. And, as someone who is mystified by the arcane art of ski and pole, even standing upright on those complex contraptions conjures my congratulation.

I feel like Gerardi is indicative of a larger plight affecting Americans: we fucking love Europe even though it is terrible and everyone with half a mind hates it.

People go absolutely tits over balls when it comes to the old country, as if a millennia of dysentery and a century of uprisings have made it a somehow wonderful place. "Oh, jeepers," these assholes croon, "do I really get to go to the place that invented Communism and Nazism?* Shit on a biscuit I'm wetting my panties just thinking about it!"

To which I reply fuck you.

"Europe is the Juno of continents!" to which I reply Juno fucking sucks a Tyrannosaurus Rex's penis and Europe is playing pass the butter with it. What's so great about Europe? Europe is where sanitary drinking water is more expensive than alcohol. Europe is where all they play in clubs is shitty house music and that aural excrement known as dubstep. Europe is where one of its oldest cities is literally sinking into the ocean because that is the only way the filth could be washed off.

Now I know what you're thinking: "Did Europe kill your daddy or touch your no-no place?"

Really?, I reply, because I can fucking read minds and I know you are pathetically projecting. The Eurozone is a depressing attempt at creating an international economy and The EU is like the League of Nations if you switched out all the politicians with the Keystone Cops.

That said, Italy is far and away the greatest part of Europe, so good job Gerardi.

Italy has brought us the incredible Berlusconi, a man who so perfectly embodies the creeds of Maximand fun that I wouldn't be surprised if he took most of his meetings getting roadhead from Nobel Laureates. He's recording an album of love songs, which I assume is code for "The only thing bigger than my vocal register is my penis and my register spans seven octaves."

Yet Berlusconi pales when it comes to the almighty awesomeness that was Il Duce. But I'm not here to compliment Italy in its choice of (pseudo)dictators, rather, I'm here to discuss Giulio Gerardi.

Or I would, if there was actually any information about him.

Again, no one has recorded anything about him in the magical space that is Wikipedia, so I can only assume that everyone else in the world, like me, doesn't give a fuck. There's nothing about him online because literally, there is nothing about him.

So I guess it's time to insult Europe more! Europe is so bad that even our shitty teen movies about it are terrible. I saw Eurotrip for the first time today. It was resoundingly awful, to the point that after I finished the movie and turned the television its memory echoed in the room, tormenting me like a ghost in an American remake of a Japanese horror film. I watched it with my roommates and we were shocked by how quickly it seemed to end because literally no characters developed. The closest thing to a plot twist was incest and honestly, that feeling of self-revulsion those two characters felt probably had nothing on the overall shame in my heart from sitting through the whole thing.

For any Europeans who might be reading this, indignation building in your throat as bile builds in mine whilst thinking of your homeland, hands trembling with the quiet, foppish rage of your continent, I understand. I am not professing that North America is wonderful either, we all know that the only continent that is nice in any real form is Antarctica and that's because the only things that live there are penguins and scientists.

Simon is also the genius behind the blog “Some Children Left Behind,” a resplendent collection of literature and poetry. He also currently sports the greatest pair of muttonchops Evander Jones has ever had the honor of laying eyes upon.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ *To whoever attempts to invoke Godwin's Law: fuck you, you are a cunt. When describing the history of a continent I feel like it's pretty fucking important to mention it as the birthplace of a genocidal ideology. If you are curious as to why I mentioned Communism then, it's because Communism is for twats and you are a twat if you like it.