God Help Me, I'm an Ernest P. Worrell Fan as as Well as a Juggalo

The book that would become You Don’t Know Me But You Don’t Like Me was sold to Scribner as Confessions of a Pop Culture Masochist. I understandably, if incorrectly, thought that spending a solid year (or more, as it turned out) immersing myself in the music, culture and community of two of the most hated acts and fanbases in American history would be a profoundly masochistic, painful endeavor. 

I went in knowing almost nothing about either act except that my then-girlfriend and now wife was really into Phish in high school and college and that Insane Clown Posse had a reputation as the worst group in the world.

Writing You Don’t Know Me But You Don’t Like Me changed me. It made me a deeper, more sensitive and empathetic writer. But I went into the project a cynical, snarky fuck so the title Confessions of a Pop Culture Masochist suited me. 

I’ve made delving deep into the unsavory and unfortunate a core component of what Donald Trump would refer to, not inaccurately, as my failing career. 

So when I joined the herd and started my own Substack, I chose the name Nathan Rabin’s Bad Ideas to convey that it would be an extension of my life-long fascination with the egregiously awful. 

I decided that I’d go back to reviewing new movies for the Substack, the dodgier and more suspect the better, but I’d also immerse myself in projects as ambitious as they are seemingly pointless. 

I’m giving paid subscribers an opportunity to choose whether I waste years of my life writing up the complete filmographies of either James Belushi or Gary Busey in addition to a marathon journey through ALL of the Ernest P Worrell movies. 

I conceived of both of these projects as purposefully painful but the fact of the matter is that I already have a soft spot in my heart for James Belushi and if he does end up being the winner of the big Substack poll something tells me I will turn into a genuine, legitimate fan. 

I’m similarly fascinated by Busey. If he pulls an upset and wins the poll I suspect I’ll spend happy years singing his praises before the really lean years set in. 

Watching Ernest Goes to Jail I came to a realization about myself: I am a fan of Jim Varney’s Ernest P. Worrell films. 

They aren’t all winners, to put it mildly, but at this point I’ve seen four Ernest movies and sincerely enjoyed three of them. That’s 75 percent! That’s a good average for any film series, let alone one that’s a walking punchline, a glib joke and an ostensible nadir for tacky American pop culture. 

I knew that something had seriously changed in my life and my career when my former mentor got really into opera and I got really into going to the Gathering of the Juggalos. 

I began my career as a professional snob. Then something happened to me and I turned into a proud vulgarian, a reverse snob, a man of the people who loves Ernest P Worrell movies and being sprayed with Faygo and attending Shrek-themed raves. 

I don’t know whether to be proud or horrified by what I’ve become. 

It’s good not to be pretentious or elitist but I think I might have taken my predilection for trashy populism just a little too far. 

KnowwhutImean? 

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