Nostalgia is a funny thing, no matter how relatively uninspiring your past actions were, they are almost always looked back upon in the fondest ways. We, as boring human beings, look back at our past like every party was a non-stop erotic cabaret and every tax return filed (or any other drudgery we’ve endured) was a literal roller coaster date with Marilyn Monroe and Abe Lincoln (now that sounds like the non-stop erotic cabaret).
Personally I am as guilty as anyone when it comes to painting the antics in my personal history book with the brush of awesomeness. Whenever I wax philosophical about young Helder, I always remember him as a charming young chap who was quick with the quips (quips brimming, nay exploding with wit) and was beloved by all who even stumbled into his personal universe of envelope pushing comedy (or what I had perceived as comedy). I was great, at least that was the story I was telling.
The unfortunate part of being the embodiment of personal vanity (at least in comedy, not in looks I was always an unappealing human being visually) and being surrounded by friends of the same ilk, is that we many times documented our supposed hilarity with a video camera. We made sure we had a camera on many of our moments to ensure that not only we knew of our hilarious exploits but that someday our videos will be uncovered by future generations and usher in a brand new renaissance of laughter that would surpass even the Cosby enlightenment.
Well, this sweater makes me want Jello pudding…ya see
Last month I decided to risk my legacy, not to mention my spot on comedy’s Mount Rushmore (here’s looking at you Carlin, Pryor, Hicks and CK), and watch a bunch of old videos with my buddy Dustin (who is also featured prominently within) to see if we were all as awesome as we remember. This may go down as the single biggest mistake of my adult life, and now I can say with confidence that I truly hate Helder aged 16-21, I possibly hate him more than any person who has ever lived…ever. I want to punch him right in the mouth area. Sure he looks and sounds relatively the same, obviously he looks a bit younger (and surprisingly heavier, unlike most everyone else in the videos) but he fails to say anything even remotely funny. What’s more baffling is that his so called “hilarious barbs” are perceived as funny by his contemporaries, as all of them pay him the highest compliment by laughing (surprisingly enough it wasn’t just pity laughter, believe me, I know what that sounds like). Not only was the young version of me a black hole of comedy, but seemingly everyone involved was (with the exception of Corey). To be clear, some of our actions I still find hilarious (Scuba Steve chugging maple syrup, Corey zapping his testicles with an ab-tronic, Worsley driving his car around the track at Northern High School), but the actual words said as jokes seemed flat and ill-timed at best. There were several running jokes that plagued our group that I find mind boggling today, one of which involved the camera holder to focus on a person’s face and say “The Man” and then pan the camera down to the crotch area and finish by saying “The Legend”. Almost everyone involved busted out that gem, some even did it 5-6 times. I understand what we were trying to convey “ha ha, hey man his genitals are legendary”, but it was one of the lamest attempts at comedy of all time, intoxicated or otherwise. This wasn’t the lone atrocity of a joke infecting our day to day lives, every joke, despite insistent laughter, was flat, lame or a combination of the two (Flame? Lat?).
Pictured: Not a Legend
What is even more frightening to my fragile ego is that my various musings on this webpage and others will, in the near future, be seen as embarrassing attempts at humour. In five years will I hate what I am writing right now? Answer…yes, or at least probably yes. Maybe I should just practice the fine art of ignorance and instead use my twisted nostalgia to form biased opinions on my level of comedy. Sounds like the best plan of action at this point. So it’s settled, 16-21 year old Helder was the epitome of lame humour, but 25 year old Helder will live on as a comedy legend. God I’m great.
Kid, you've got the goods!