Hitler, That Guy You Know

I have only one wish for the human race in 2016. And that wish is…

I want someone to make a movie where a madman from history has a hilariously over the top breakdown like Bruno Ganz’s Hitler in Downfall. I hope and I pray each morning and every evening to the Great Maker Above that something this year will replace the “Hitler learns about…” meme.

I’ll even accept a fucking director’s cut that gives us a different angle. Of all the great memes out there, I don’t understand why this is the one that won’t die. And it gets more and more banal, too. For example, as the “historic snowstorm” bullshit got underway, everyone’s favorite Metro Hate blog posted this:

What’s next? “Hitler learns that there are two hotels on Park Place while he’s playing Monopoly with you and Shirley at Tom’s party on Saturday”?

Which would be awesome now that I think about it. Someone do that.

Speaking of Hitler, I finished this book I’ve been writing about my stupid family. It’s with the editors now and I realize that I have a 277 page tale about people who were all ranting megalomaniacs and seemed to be convinced that they could not only get away with murder, but that that they were probably god.

The first draft of the book was 380 pages. That extra hundred pages was my own lunatic ranting about how terrible all of my bosses, ex-girlfriends, and former friends were. My editors told me to put all that in a second book, which is really their way of saying I’m crazy. “Nacho learns that he can’t badmouth his boss – click here to watch!”

I don’t think I can actually do a second book about my terrible career and relationship choices. I’ll probably just cut up that 100 pages into a zillion Friday blog posts and program Greatsociety through 2017.

So, anyway, there was this kid (this is the Hitler connection) that I knew in college who believed he was the reincarnation of Hitler. He was fairly normal in his freshman year but, in our second year, he took a class about Nazi propaganda from a professor who was obsessed with Hitler. After that class, this kid pretty much lost it. He not only got the Hitler haircut, he dyed his hair to match the same shade as der Fuhrer. He grew a Hitler mustache and was able to provide the English version of Hitler’s speeches on demand.

Worryingly, he also started to gather several like-minded freshman under his wing, and they followed him with a sort of eerie devotion.

Every year, on Hitler’s birthday, this guy would treat the entire floor of our dorm to an all expense paid dinner at the most expensive steakhouse in town. We were all starving college kids, so everyone tagged along. Faux-Hitler would rent out a room with a big banquet table and sit at the head of it while his guests went insane, eating and drinking everything in sight, gorging ourselves on probably the best meal we’d get all year. We were bad. I’m talking ordering complete second dinners to slip into our backpacks, and everyone going through multiple bottles of wine each until we were dance on the tables drunk.

At some point in the evening, Faux-Hitler would tap his glass and stand up. Every year, he’d give us a new speech about the glory and power of Hitler and encourage us to understand that we could be better people – powerful people – if we came to the light.

We cheered him on wildly because we lived for those parties, man. I kind of miss them sometimes.