To My Unborn Son: Stuff I Won't Have the Balls to Say
Five Reasons Bastards Always Win

To my unconceived (or born without my knowledge in a foreign land) son, presumably christened Digory or Eustace by your English mother, but your secret name -- which I whispered to the stars the night you were born -- is Sue:There is so much I want for you. I want you to be a man of integrity. I want you to respect the dignity of other human beings. Unfortunately, I also want you to succeed, and that is why you can never be the first two. Son, you will shortly discover the first rule of human existence:
BASTARDS ALWAYS WIN

Just a few successful bastards who will take your freedom, your money, your life, all of the above plus your girl and your goddamn bragging rights you waited 86 years for. It profits you not to be kind and good, son. A bastard will reap your efforts, and turn your neighbors against you in the name of God, country and love. It is The Bastard who thrives upon our labors, harvests our indignities for his vicious dollar and foists radio singles in our ears.

We could solve the deficit tomorrow if we taxed autotune. You might believe the smart, sociable and kind will eventually trump the stupid, greedy and angry, but you are wrong like a man-thong, Donkey Kong. Just like a frat boy in a slumbering sorority, bastards will take everything you have without even stopping to learn your name. In fact, a great number of them will be frat boys.

Or parrots. The Bastard cheats, sabotages and fouls what he cannot have. The Bastard shows remarkable bravado to achieve cowardly goals. The Bastard grinds the poor into the bloody sand to reap fortunes he never spends. The Bastard wears 10 million faces, but speaks with one equivocating voice.

Every war starts with some idiots listening to a bastard. It is important you become a bastard, son, before you are crushed by bastards. I advise you to find the happiest child on the playground and sucker-punch him, so he knows the score. Hold his face in the dirt, and if I pretend to be mad at you, know that I do it only for show for his parents, who are caring and therefore weak. More likely, I will have abandoned you by then for some sap stepfather to raise, a tactic of bastards to disseminate our genes without losing beer money.

Everyone is bastards.
NOTHING IS WORTH DOING

We call this a "sknoord" back in Bronvarmothvaarstengart. Let's say you're an earnest young Jew bitten by a radioactive spider. A burglar runs past you. Knowing this same footpad is scheduled to shoot your uncle later over some land rights that are too complicated to go into here ... do you stop him? No way, true believer! This isn't an Uncle's Day column! While you were wrestling for cash to your loved ones, Flattering Flash Thompson took the Marvelous MJ to the malt shop to pretend to listen while she natters on about last night's episode of Peyton Place

Stan "The Man" Lee once talked a model into leaving her husband, because a silver-tongue is the best superpower of all.
TREAT A SEXBOT LIKE A LADY

That's the one. : The fewer feelings you have, the more invulnerable you grow! Since all efforts are worthless, why invest a solid couple of years in something that's going to wither like a nun's lips? Best case scenario, you keep her around by being a bastard, and then you both secretly hate yourself until it's too late to use other people. Better to have the sexbot, which won't leave you for not treating it badly enough. Fortunately, I've given you an escape hatch! Your name isn't really Sue, so abandon that persona. It's actually Bella Madesin Jayde Swann McGinley. You can tell your bullies it's spelled wrong on purpose, because you're trendy but special, like a girl Prince wrote a song for in exchange for freaky purple sex.

Now there was a man who appreciated a sexbot.
CRIME PAYS

We have failed you so badly, sir. That said, murder is a big risk, and bringing in accomplices can cause trouble. "What if da guy squeals?" you ask in some kind of vintage Brooklyn accent, and you make me proud, because you've just learned the final lesson.
EVERYONE'S A RAT

Beast-Man can't do anything right. You don't have to be paranoid. It's not that anyone's out to get you, it's that they're all out to get their own. Anyway, that's my advice. Hopefully you can use it to become a right bastard who wins at all the unimportant things, rather than end up like your granddad, a gentle, kind man who wastes time serving his community and uncovering the truth. Such a man will never understand our laughter, fictional child of mine, as we watch our goons break a clown's arm.And that's why, son, when you become a big enough bastard, I want you to kill them. Kill them all. Gather every last bastard to your throne for a S.M.E.R.S.H.ian scheme, and while they're plotting where to put the knife, I want you to self-destroy the volcano lair and laugh maniacally as gooey, hot stones plunge from the ceiling. I'll be there, too, proudly thinking I should have seen it coming from a boy named Sue. (I tricked you again. You were Sue all along! Double-cross!) Then I'll hug you for the first time, as the lava turns our arms to gas, and say, "What a finer world--what a bastardless, finer world it will be for your grandfather now to live in, laugh in and love."Happy father's day, Pop.
Brendan McGinley writes comics about bastards with father issues.
Be sure to learn more about these bastards in 6 Brutal Leaders And Their Ridiculous Secret Hobbies and