Geek Redemption: What's Wrong with Being a Geek? How to Stop Being One [Paperback]

Just what is wrong with being a geek? Don't geeks at least all have jobs, and don't some of them get rich? Well, if there is really anyone out there who doesn't know just what is wrong with being a geek, this book should be a big help. It presents general narrative descriptions of geek characteristics and history and then completes this cavalcade by giving a series of bizarre anecdotes about the foibles of specific geeks.

Suppose you went to sleep one night and suffered instant amnesia, waking up to find yourself trapped in the horrid body and life of a nerd? You look in the mirror and see a pale, skinny person with thick Coke-bottle eyeglasses and preposterously unappealing clothes. You must constantly be on the lookout for bullies, can't play sports, and have a miserable personality. Just to make matters worse, what if you are possessed by bone-crushing horniness, but no one attractive will give you the time of day? This is how many of us wake up every morning.

It would seem to make the most sense to immediately make radical and thorough changes to divest oneself of nerdhood and to acquire the characteristics of a cool person. The elements of this redemption are obvious, the methods more elusive. How does one gain muscles in order to achieve a more average appearance? How does one choose decent clothes, get good at sports, get a tan, and learn some social graces? Perhaps Geek Redemption is the answer.

Geek Redemption outlines and identifies in a humorous way, all of the many unsavory characteristics of geeks. It goes on to provide a tried and true pathway to de-louse oneself of geek characteristics and to re-emerge as a totally different person.

Since geeks have very identifiable characteristics, it would seem to be immediately possible to begin the process of Geek Redemption by simply reversing those characteristics. The eager redemptee should begin by taking a shower, getting a haircut, shaving, burning his nerd rags, dressing for success, getting a tan, and building some muscles, among many other things. Once having begun this process, the redemptee is ready to begin constructing The Three Pillars of Geek Redemption. These are Presentation Redemption, Social Redemption, and Physical Redemption.

Presentation Redemption encompasses the choice of clothes, grooming, and many personal accessories that fall in the same avenue as dressing for success. Nerds consistently make certain wardrobe blunders that can be easily corrected. Some of the more obvious ones include scroungy long hair, beards, or a pony tail; sandals; plaid madness; high-water pants over nerd fur; and polyester proliferation.

Social Redemption includes decorum and comportment at work and how to deal with the unredeemed geeks around you. It also includes a better way to attract women.

When you get right down to it, Presentation Redemption and Social Redemption, while both being necessary, can only take you so far. The pillar that puts reality into the whole process is Physical Redemption. Physical Redemption is the dimension of the physique. Physique is what gives clothes something to enhance. Improving the physique also improves the body's radiant sexual energy and attractiveness. The exercises involved improve coordination and posture. The process helps to change one's personality for the better and leads to enhanced self esteem and respect. All of these things reflect in better esteem from others.

Bodybuilding in reasonable amounts produces an appearance that is exceptionally pleasing. Progressive resistance weight training is the approach to gain this appearance. The nerd's first goal is to achieve an appearance of normalcy. At that point, superiority becomes possible. Weight training is also excellent preparation for sports. Though they horrify the average nerd, sports also tend to enhance a person's attitude, self-possession, and physique.

By far, most nerds are of the emaciated variety. Achieving a more normal appearance is beastly difficult for us. Nevertheless, it is possible. To achieve a normal appearance, the redemptee will strive to correct the typical nerd flaws that include pencil neck, beer gut, love handles, girly-man arms, sunken chest, bird legs, and buttlessness. When the redemptee is ready to push on to excellence, the desired characteristics include broad shoulders, a deep chest, tapered back, flat stomach, and muscular arms and legs.

The reader is invited to drop in, to be entertained, and then to stay to progress along the path to Geek Redemption.

AAM Press is proud to offer Geek Redemption as our first effort at book publishing. This is a book that will both entertain and inform. We have worked very hard to make certain that the writing, editing, illustrating, and production are all of professional quality. Please buy it, enjoy it, and good luck with your own redemption. Or perhaps you will find Geek Redemption to be an excellent present for that certain geek you might know. AAM Press is looking forward to providing a useful and enjoyable experience to our readers.

For long years and years, I sat in a tiny airless and lightless office deep within the bowels of an old and decrepit government building. My daily task was to develop computer software for the Space Program. This office was so small, dark, dirty, and foul that had inmates from death row been put there, the ACLU would certainly have sued. Truly, the isolation cells in block D of Alcatraz provided more inviting quarters.

Trapped in the nasty environment day after day, my only escape was within the world of the imagination. Each day, my mind would wander to the possibilities of liberation from the geekism that had entrapped me into that office. My thoughts touched on every little detail that condemn a person to be a geek, and what those details would be like for a person who was truly cool. I imagined being the creator of a chain of Geek Redemption centers, boot-camps for nerds where nerds, geeks, dorks, dweebs, and spastics could be whipped into shape by well-built drill sergeants. No, make that by beautiful Amazons, who could humiliate the nerds and twist pain into their stick-like arms at will.

This collection of imaginings grew like ivy until my brain and memory could no longer hold it all. It was necessary to write it all down. But why not publish it? Why not take the first step toward this dream by putting it all into a book?

The book is done and is available for your approval. I hope you will join me in this journey, this Escape from Geekland.

--Johnny Dupa

Beat the Bullies and Bag the Babes!

This book will show you how to improve your life by following the simple principle of Geek Reversal.

Most nerds do not have to play exclusively with the cards we were dealt. Today, approaches are available that will allow the eager redemptee to:

* Avoid wearing nerdy clothes.
* Stop acting like a geek.
* Pack muscles between skin and bones.

This Cavalcade of Geeks tells about the darkside of geekhood from the foibles of strange characters including Frenchy Le Spastique, Abner Cadaver, Fillippe Mango, Bra-Smeller, Clam-Face, and Tyrone Quando.

The unredeemed don't want you to change! Here's what they have to say:

"The writer sounds angry. He's stuck in High School. The rest of us have gotten past these things." --Stan Lefto, Liberal Techie

"I am the person you describe, but I have long since given up the notion that a book will fundamentally change a person. For me to pretend otherwise would be a charade." --A Prominent NY Book Editor

"Geeks don't pump iron and geeks don't spend money. Nobody is going to buy your book." --M.C. Dupa, Sister

Johnny Dupa is a lifelong geek and computer programmer. At age 13, Johnny faced the usual constant attention from bullies and revulsed looks from pretty girls. It was time to begin the process of redemption. Thanks to decades of effort, people no longer tell Johnny that he looks "smart."

The author was born to be a skinny, bespectacled oddball. The specs went on at age 5. The oddball personality emerged in kindergarten, along with spasticity. Johnny Dupa could not skip as could the other children. Also, Johnny had no common sense and was continuously in trouble with teachers from kindergarten on. You see, it was far more interesting to daydream and to draw rocket ships than to learn the mundane banalities of arithmetic and spelling.

Soon, the imaginings became so vivid that young Johnny Dupa felt compelled to interact with all sorts of imaginary objects via what can only be described as pantomime. Johnny spent hours moving arms, legs, and body as the daydreams progressed. The poor harried father of young Johnny Dupa felt it necessary to scream at Johnny to do whatever the hell he was doing in the back yard instead of on front lawn, in order to reduce the embarrassment to the whole family.

With so many proto-virtual reality pantomimes to complete, Johnny had little time for grooming, clothes, or learning the social niceties. It became kind of fun to play up to the reputation of being an oddball. Later, the whole thing turned out to be a grave miscalculation as Johnny entered the crucible of puberty. It is in the teens that the persecution of nerds takes on a dangerous element, thanks to the bullies. The worst part is that overwhelming horniness set in, yet Johnny had no hope of participating in the huge love-in that was occurring all around him. There was only the daily humiliation at the hands of the many eager bullies in the area.

Redemption began at age 13 when Johnny Dupa found a weightlifting magazine. Surely, these guys didn't have to worry about bullies! The magazine claimed that anyone could begin making gains in physique and athletic prowess. It was time to quit those piano lessons and begin training for sports! Shortly after, Johnny was able to make the varsity basketball team and to letter there and in track and field. Occasional dates with cheerleaders followed.

While redemption progressed, so did the conflicting reality that Johnny's career would be in the technical fields. College meant honors degrees in mathematics and physics and no hope of belonging to a fraternity. Redemption unfolds slowly, you see. Going to work in the technical fields nowadays means that a total saturation in geek culture is inevitable. Twenty-five years of this has contributed the bulk of the anecdotes and observations in the book.

Geek Redemption is an ongoing process that occasionally involves quantum leaps. As you progress, the day comes when you begin to make sports teams. On another day, the bullies just lose all interest. The day comes when you burn your nerd rags and rush to Brooks Brothers for some proper clothes. There is much that could be added to the subject, but for the here and now, Johnny Dupa sets forth the particulars of one person's path to redemption.