gather round, folks, that i may pass down the tale of Fuck-It Jonn, because that dude is just the GREATEST FUCKING CONMAN in the WORLD, and he WASN’T EVEN TRYING. he absolutely fucking STUMBLED ON ACCIDENT into THE SCAM THAT WOULD DEFINE HIS ENTIRE LIFE. the lie that transformed his ENTIRE EXISTENCE out of SHEER RANDOM BULLSHIT.
and his sole motivation was to EAT FINGER FOOD.
consider:
in the Wayback Days™ before i was born, the people who would later become my parents had this friend named… yeah, let’s say jonn. i’d rather not say his real name. bitches not snitches, and all that.
so. france in the late 80s. jonn and my parents had just finished school and all found jobs in computer engineering. (not that they STUDIED computer engineering, mind you. no, they were all studying how to become fish farmers or some shit. but those were simpler times, when knowing how to turn the fucking screen on got you a comfortable salary at the ripe old age of 24 years old.)
except that jonn, who was a chill hippie kind of dude, was bored to death by his desk job. so bored that he decided to just up and quit. “fuck it”, was basically jonn’s motto. fuck it, he’d find something better! fuck it, and things would work out! EXCEPT (as you may have guessed) THEY DIDN’T. for months and months he didn’t find another job. and so he ended up depressed, struggling, and eating dinner at my future-parents’ tiny apartment, three times a week, so he wouldn’t literally starve.
time went by. jonn was still unemployed. so before his resources hit rock bottom, jonn did the only logical, reasonable thing. what’s that, you ask? begged for his old job back? went back to school? crawled home to his parents? ha ha! obviously you do not share jonn’s ADVENTUROUS AND ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT. and also you lack his BIZARRE LOGIC AND PLAIN WEIRD APPROACH TO LIFE.
what jonn did was: say “fuck it” (again) and leave for thailand.
because you see, thailand was cheap by french standards. so cheap that even a penniless dude on unemployment could live there for weeks on end, spending much less than he would have in france, as long as he didn’t mind roughing it. and jonn didn’t mind! “fuck it”, he’d said. and by god, he would stand by his words!
so jonn gamely scrounged up the money for the plane ticket and then… yeah. basically bummed it out in thailand. for two months. seeing the sights. sleeping on the street. making new friends.
and one of these news friends turned out to be very adept at FORGING PAPERS.
huh, jonn said to himself (probably high at the time) this sounds not at all shifty and more like a ONCE IN A LIFETIME OPPORTUNITY; what could POSSIBLY GO WRONG. my new thai best friend is even offering me a FAMILY DISCOUNT. for fake papers. fuck it! let’s have some!
as far as i can tell, jonn… didn’t even need fake papers?? like, he was literally just trying not to pass up on an opportunity here. so he smoked some more weed (i can only assume) and got A BRILLIANT IDEA. fake ID card? LAME. fake driver’s licence? HACKNEYED. fake medical degree? PEDESTRIAN. no! jonn got himself a fake press card.
but why??
well, OBVIOUSLY, just so he could get into cultural events for free – conferences, art premieres, etc – and eat all the finger food. that was his grand plan. stroll into press-only events, wave his poorly-made card around, and gorge himself on canapés. no more going hungry! ever! jonn would live off tiny slices of toasted foie gras and flutes of cheap champagne for the rest of his life!
so now jonn, Very Obviously Fake Journalist™, is back in france and he’s DOING THE THING. and guess what? this was before google. before facebook. before linkedin. impersonating a journalist was very easy. if people asked where you worked you just said you were freelance, then steered the conversation to current politics and stealthily devoured the entire buffet while everybody was busy debating.
and so. this is what jonn is doing. his monumentally stupid plan is actually working. this is how he eats. with thai-made fake papers and sheer fucking confidence. and of course people start noticing him eventually! jonn is always fucking there! at all and any events in paris! because, again, THIS IS HOW HE EATS! but it’s always the same people running around in these circles, anyway. so nobody’s surprised to see the same dudes popping up over and over again. jonn blends in! and jonn is very good at making friends. and changing the subject. and eating canapés.
and then ONE DAY
one of jonn’s newfangled journalist friends (a REAL journalist, mind you, who has NO IDEA that jonn isn’t What He Seems) basically goes: “dude i’m so swamped rn. everyone wants everything all at once. fuck. shit. are you swamped too?”
“oh, for sure,” jonn says through a mouthful of his twenty-ninth serving of canapés that night. “not a second to myself”
“god. fuck. tell me about it. shit. i’m just so damn swamped.” Real Journalist shakes his head. “if i could only find someone to cover for me on this one article.”
now, i know i said before that jonn was smoking weed. but i must confess now i said it for humorous effect. i have no idea if jonn’s ever been within five hundred yards of a blunt his whole life. but what you must understand is that jonn is Chill™ on like. a soul-deep level. his whole mind is one long exhale of smoke followed by the words “fuck it”. this is a man who left his job for no reason, lived in thailand on a tourist’s visa for two months, got fake papers there for the lol of it all, and is now living off press-only events in paris. jonn was BORN HIGH.
SO. when RJ asks him: “dude. jonn. you said you were working freelance. i know you’re busy but don’t you think you could maybe cover for me? just this once?”
jonn NATURALLY answers: “fuck it. sure”
then goes to an unemployment center and applies for one of their free one-week classes. on journalism. jonn spends ALL OF ONE WEEK learning How To Write An Article Like A Real Journalist With A Real Press Card. then writes the article. basically bullshitting his way through that thing. half-assing the life out of it. faking his heart out. because why not? FUCK IT.
i have NO IDEA if he actually did a good job or not. but it was in fact good enough for RJ who really must have been truly swamped, and was so truly grateful that he told all of their mutual journalists friends. who were ALL SWAMPED. i’m given to understand it’s the natural state of the journalist in the wild.
and so jonn is now REGULARLY COVERING FOR ALL SORTS OF JOURNALISTS.
not making much money i assume. but still, not bad for a dude who studied journalism for five whole days.
and well, it’s kinda fun! better than moping around at home waiting for the next free canapé press-only premiere. so jonn keeps at it. and eventually it occurs to him that hey! he spent two months in thailand. why not make an article out of that? so he writes himself a lil paper, retelling his Bumtastic Adventures in the Land of Thai People, Cheap Living and Forged Papers (That Last One Having Nothing to Do With Him Personally of Course). and he’s kinda proud of it. so much that he gives it to his journalist friends. can they maybe pass it around? see if anybody would be interested in publishing it? for a modest fee and some more canapés?
and yeah. someone was in fact interested in publishing it. and that someone was:
THE
NATIONAL
GEOGRAPHIC
(french edition.)
so jonn got a REAL press card. got a FULL-TIME JOB at the national geographic. and spent the REST OF HIS WORK LIFE traveling abroad for six months, then going back to paris the rest of the year to write about his wacky journeys. he’s retired now, having published several books full of his articles and photographs. he’s bought a b&b in the french countryside with all his money. and continues to say “fuck it” to any problem that comes his way like the absolute fucking legend he is.
as far as i know, none of his journalist buddies nor his boss ever found out about any of this.
Okay, this needs to be a movie SO bad
Oh god this reminds me of a story my dad tells all the time about his brother’s ex-wife’s cousin. I have absolutely no idea if this is true, the names of anyone involved nor anyway to verify it but this was one of the fairytales I grew up on, made even better by the fact that it was possibly true-ish and based in that weird a slightly mythical place my dad grew up in: Brazil in the 70s.
Let me set the stage: as I said, Brazil 1970s. This guy, idk his name but I vaguely remember it might have been Eduardo, so let’s say Ed. My grandad used to be hotshit in Brazil, so my uncle married a woman from a Family. Politicians, millionaires, the whole shebang. People who were used to the best from life. Most of them were ambitious and hard working in that rich people way that meant yeah this position is being basically handed to you but it still means 10+ hour days in a corner office, lots of cocaine to cope and a strained relationship with your wife.
And then there was Ed. Ed was fine. Ed was always fine, as long as he didn’t have to do much. Nowadays, Ed would probably be a gamer or couch potato of some sort, but this was the 70s. I don’t think they even had cable. Basically, Ed was out for a good time if it meant zero effort from him. Ed was also the nephew of the Vice President, which will become important later on.
So while Ed’s sisters are being debutants and his brothers are going into business or politics, ed decides that what he wants is to live in a shack on the beach. It’s Brazil, so there’s no real need for like, heating. He can live without ac or electricity. The beach has all he need. If ones standards are low enough, one can be as lazy as one wishes ~ the Word of Ed.
So anyway, there he is, chilling on the beach, when an artist friend of his rolls up one day with this huge sculpture in his pickup truck of an old woman washing clothes and basically says, “My client flaked and idk what the fuck to do with this, you care if I leave this with you? Like right here in front of your house since it’s literally too big to fit inside your shack?” And Ed’s like, sure this effects me in no way, so go for it.
As an aside, I feel like this must have been a Thing with Ed. Like, all his friends would just leave him shit because he’d find a use for it? Or he had hoarder tendencies? Idk.
So time passes, and one morning Ed gets up at noon and walks out and finds that someone left fish in front of his washer lady sculpture. Like, a couple trout tied together with twine. And Ed just kinda shrugs goes out back to his fire pit and fries it up and cooks it for dinner.
Next day, more fish. This continues for an indefinite period of time until one morning Ed finally gets curious enough to get up before dawn and stake out the statue to see why the fuck people are leaving him all the fish.
And what should come mozeying over gander than a group of pious fishermen, who, when they see him, are all like, Hello! Are you also here to pay your respects to La Virgen Lavadeira (In English: Virgin Mary of the Washerwomen)?
Ed: Ummm what
Fisherman: you see, I was having a very poor time fishing for some months. But then, I stumbled upon this shrine and prayed to the virgin, and that day I caught more fish than I had all month! Of course, each morning I have been coming here to pay my respects and so far the fishing has been very good. I’ve even told my fellow fisherman, and we all pay tribute to the virgin.
Now, if I was in this situation I don’t know what I would do, but as far as I can tell Ed’s reaction was basically to nod and continue on as normal, only now he sometimes shared some coffee with the fishermen in the morning right before they took off for work and he cooked and ate the virgin’s fish for his mildly sacrilegeous lunch. This continued for an indefinite period of time.
So then my uncle, roped into their tri-monthly ‘let’s go down to the beach and make sure Ed’s not dead yet’ duty shows up and thinks this is all hilarious. And since he never goes anywhere without several casks of Bacardi Gold Rum in his trunk, and several of Ed’s musician friends were visiting, they have themselves a great time. And honestly, why wouldn’t it be? The fishermen are willing to donate some fish to celebrate the Virgin, they got a lot of alcohol and some decent music. Everything you need for a party. Fast forward about a year, and everyone is like, we should do that again. Get really drunk and play music. I’ll invite some of my dancer friends! And so on and so forth.
Within three or four years, this thing is like, an event known for miles around. Folk bands are traveling by train to get there to play for exposure. It’s a thing.
And then Ed’s uncle shows up. The Vice President. And he loves it. It showcases Brazilian folk music while having wholesome religious roots (because remember, Ed hasn’t really told anyone that the Virgin isn’t so much a shrine as a statue his friend left there because it was closer than the dump). And with the authority vested in him by the weird and nebulous Brazilian government of the 60/70s, he declares this to be an annual cultural event. And, he appoints Ed to be in charge of it.
So now Ed is being paid a pretty decent government salary and is in charge of getting permits, hiring folk bands, coordinating travel, etc etc etc for the biggest annual celebration of North Brazilian Folk Music in the country. He’s busier than nearly everyone else in the family and perfectly miserable last I heard, which means there’s some sort of moral to this but fuck me if I know what it is.
@amimijones I found your guy!!!
Lavadeira Festival – May, 01 – Recife and Cabo de Santo Agostinho – Pernambuco/Brazil
Omg. OMG HES REAL. HOLY SHIT.
Thank you so much. I’ve tried looking for this and I’ve never been able to find it. I feel like I’ve just been thinking of hogwarts is real and I can go.
fuck it until you make it
Published
The Chaos Bitches 