Welcome, one and all, to the first ever post of The Fatty Liver. For those who know me personally, I sincerely apologize. For those who don’t, my name is George Chunias. I’m a somewhat funny, mildly/severely overweight Greek dude with a laptop and way too much free time for an employed adult. To the people reading this, which I assume is my mom and a handful of confused fat guys seeking information about their medical condition, I want to explain what this blog is and why I decided to start it. This is the only blog that will be anywhere near this length so bear with me just for this one.

The Fatty Liver is meant to be an escape, plain and simple. An escape from your shitty job. An escape from anything you may be struggling with personally. And an escape from negativity in general.

Forgive the pithiness, I promise I’ll be much more nihilist and ironically detached going forward.

But to that weird, sentimental end, I decided to start this blog just to give you something to laugh at in the middle of a bad day. Or a good day. Would be weird to limit your laughter to bad days. But in general, I just want to make you laugh. That’s what I love doing more than anything on this Earth, and all I’ve ever really wanted to do with my life. And yes, I’m aware that’s the same basic backstory as the Joker. But if you’ll indulge a little more reading, I’ll explain how we got here and where we’re going moving forward…

The Origin Story

I’ve been in the blogging game on and off (mostly off) for the better part of 6 years. At first it was just a means of getting some of my inane thoughts out into the internet ether. But as I got deeper into it, I found out that people enjoyed my irreverent opinions and objectively stupid way of looking at the world.

After a couple years of blogging with moderate success in my small circle, I left the practice to focus more fully on being drunk. However in my senior year at Boston College, I was faced with the question of what I would do with my life. Fearing a career in accounts receivable or Oracle sales, I realized I needed to figure out an answer to that question ASAP.

Then one day in a marketing class, the professor listed off every type of marketing career path there is and asked us to discuss which ones interested us. Without hesitation, I turned to the person next to me and said, verbatim, “Honestly, I don’t give a shit about any of this. I just want to make people laugh.” (This is the most sincere this blog will ever get btw). I knew right then that all I wanted to do with the rest of my life was be funny. So with that insight in mind, I did the opposite and took a job running webinars at a software startup, solely because I saw they had a craft beer fridge listed amongst their office amenities. To college seniors, I do not recommend this strategy.

The people at that company were great and I made some valuable connections, but the work was decidedly not for me. And I became disillusioned with the real world quickly. Well not really disillusioned — I knew it would suck. But I truly didn’t understand how or why people would devote their lives to some boring ass job that sucks the life out of them.

However, as I was indulging in my daily routine of half sleeping in a storage closet, with multiple windows of Dog the Bounty Hunter pulled up on my work laptop, something occurred to me: Seemingly everyone I knew disliked their career. They sat at their desk every day, like me, doing a bunch of inconsequential work and just praying for something, anything, that would break up the monotony of their day.

And that’s when it hit me — I can be the one to break up that monotony. I’m not naive or vain enough to think I’m going to have some grand impact on the world. I’m not going to cure cancer, or solve world hunger any time soon. But I am capable of giving you a little laugh and making your day more bearable. Because the world can be an on-fire garbage can sometimes, and if I can make it just a little less shitty, that’s worth something. So after 3 years of saying I would do this and stockpiling ideas, I finally took the 2 hours required to build and launch this website.

The Name

Ah yes, the name of this blog. It reads like the name of a British improv troupe from the 1980’s. But no, there’s a meaning behind it. Those of you who know me, know that I sometimes struggle with my weight. Well, it’s not really a struggle if I don’t try to combat it at all, but I digress. 3 years ago, right around the time I conceived of the idea for this blog, I began having some abdominal discomfort. I went to the doctor and after a litany of tests, they couldn’t figure out what was causing it.

But in the process of diagnosing me, they discovered on an ultrasound that I have what is known as a fatty liver, which as you may have guessed, is a liver that has too much fat in it. Now I understand that it might be difficult for some of you to grasp that I’m not the Adonis-like picture of health that you thought you knew. I too, was dismayed that crushing 3 McDicks sandwiches weekly was not, in fact, conducive to long-term health.

However, I look at the discovery as a blessing. For starters, this is a very common and reversible condition. It’s just a matter of reworking my diet and getting my fat ass (and fat organs apparently) in the shape befitting a 26-year-old stud. This means hitting the gym, eating healthy, reducing my McDanks consumption to bi-monthly at most, etc, all of which are steps I’ve since implemented. Don’t believe alcohol has any tangible effect on the liver, so all good on that front.

But aside from pulling me out of the vicious cycle of chips, beers, and trig pulls that I was locked into, the diagnosis served as a bit of a wake up call for me to get going on the things I want in life. And making a career out of making people laugh is something I want more than anything. I don’t want to look back on my liver-induced deathbed in 12-15 years and wonder, “what if?”

And lastly, I got a pretty dope blog name out of it. See kids? Sometimes it pays to eat like shit and binge drink.

What’s next?

Alright, as we mercifully come to the end of this tome, I just wanted to preview what’s next for the blog. I’m going to try to post as regularly as I can on here, so please bookmark this and jump on the site whenever your day is going shittily. Also toss me a follow on Facebook and Twitter.

As for content, I promise I won’t bore you with (many) anecdotes of my life. Also, there will be absolutely NO discussion of politics or real-world issues. I cannot stress this enough. This blog is an escape from all that nonsense, and no one wants my take on anything serious anyways.

The posts on here will be eclectic, fittingly so because I have a wide range of interests. Sometimes, I’ll give satirical sports takes. Other times, I’ll pitch my shitty business ideas. There will be the occasional how-to guide. Or videos (several of which are already posted in the videos section). Or just random shit I notice during the day and blow out of proportion. And a LOT of the time, I’ll be dusting off some of the (hopefully) funny blog ideas I’ve stored up in my phone over the years.

But regardless of the content, the intent of each post and video will always be the same: To make you laugh.

Welcome, once again, to The Fatty Liver — it’s my genuine pleasure to have you here.

-G