Why I Hate Billy Fracking Corgan

One day in my high school freshman biology class, Leah Waldren stared across the lab table at me rather intently. After a few seconds she said, "Has anyone ever told you you look like Billy Corgan?" Don't quote me on this, but I'm pretty sure it was the first time Leah had ever said anything to me. If you had known Leah, you'd understand that this was kind of a big deal.

Being the complete and utter loser that I was back then, I had no idea who the frack Billy Corgan was. At that particular moment in time, I didn't really care who he was. All I wanted to know was whether or not girls thought he was hot.

In response to her question, the only thing I could think to say was, "Who's Billy Corgan?"

"Oh. Never mind." And that marked the last time Leah ever said anything to me.

Over the next couple years, people would ask me the same question repeatedly. "Has anyone ever told you you look like Billy Corgan?" Yes! All the goddamn time! Who is this fracker?

The answer came in the summer of 1996. I was watching my cousin Steve during the afternoons, and MTV was on pretty much non-stop. One of the videos that played regularly was that Smashing Pumpkins homage to Georges Melies' A TRIP TO THE MOON. For the first time in my life, I saw Billy Corgan. And it FREAKED ME OUT.

He did look like me. He looked JUST like me. And it scared the shit out of me. Ask Steve. Every time that video came on TV, I would close my eyes and writhe around on the floor in pain like Luke Skywalker at the end of JEDI when the Emperor is shooting him with those lightning bolts.

It was terrifying. Like someone had stolen my body when I was asleep and forced me to sing shitty alternative rock against my will, and videotaped it, and then broadcast it on MTV seemingly 24 hours a day.

I could not stand it. I came, like, *this* close to having a mental breakdown. And the worst part about it was that from that moment on, to this day, no one sees the resemblance except for me.

It's like little baby Jesus played some sort of trick on me. He had hot chicks like Leah plant this idea into my head years in advance, knowing full well that I'd listen to them because they were hot, and then the moment I saw this doppelganging motherfracker, he flipped a switch, and suddenly I was the only person in the world who could see it. And now everyone thinks I'm crazy.

Anyway, for my own mental health I have avoided anything related to The Smashing Pumpkins for the better part of a decade. But then a couple weeks ago, the WATCHMEN trailer came out with that song from BATMAN AND ROBIN. I knew that there were two versions of the song on the soundtrack, and I was very innocently trying to figure out which was which. So, in a momentary lapse in judgment, I popped in my BATMAN AND ROBIN DVD (shut up...) which contained the music video for that Smashing Pumpkins song.

Suddenly, there he was. His big terrifying face filling my 112-inch screen.

Only now it's worse. When I was 16, I had hair and he was bald. So there was that slight disconnect. "Yeah, that's what I would look like if I shaved my head." Well, guess what. Now I shave my head! So now it's like looking in a goddamn mirror. And it still scares the shit out of me. And I know no one else sees it, but frack you all. I see it, and that's all that matters.