Joseph's Writings

German Lawsuit over American Music

2010-07-27T03:42:00.001-04:00

Edgar Gossurt, lead singer of Stuttgarten, a German band
formed in 1974 came to his senses in early March after
a drug binge that he claims effectively wiped out three
decades of his life. "Jah, Ich kannt rekall muchen fromme
the previous drei decaden," he reports, "but ziss musique
vass all mein, and now is nein."
Gossurt's music, recorded mostly out of his garage onto
a four track recorder, sounds strikingly similar to major
American bands of the grunge movement. Gossurt, rooting
through a shoebox full of cassette tapes says, "It vas une
time of great invention, jah. Vee vuhr doing things with
the guitaren zat had not been thought uhf." Upon pressing
play on the tape, long strains of distortion are heard backed
by constant and frenetic percussion.
Such tracks from Gossurt's recordings include:
"Du smelle spirit: teenage liken"
"Ich bin Hungrig Stricken"
"Das Jeremy"
"Kreep"
"Spuhne Man (danke schoen)"
The tracks have a raw, uncontained quality to them,
full of brazen vocals backed by a very stripped down
guitar and drum sound. The similarity to famous recordings
of American grunge bands of the early nineties is hard
to miss, but it appears very unlikely that the songs of
Stuttgarten will be recognized as having been plagiarized,
considering the long span of time since the release of
the tracks in question.
Gossurt runs a hand through his long unkempt hair and writes
notes on loose pieces of paper while talking,
"Jah, I am feeling that this famen should have been mein."
Gossurt relates that he is moving forward with his music
despite this setback and, grabbing a guitar, plays a few
bars of a new song he is writing which he calls,
'ich bin yellow: ich schreiben jah'.

Catfood and You

2010-06-28T17:12:00.002-04:00

Are you a bachelor? A college student?
Maybe you're neither of those or maybe
you're an odd combination of both, but
regardless, if you're hungry and
all you've got left is the five dollar bill you
found putting away your winter coat,
It's time you got acquainted with catfood.
It's far healthier to eat catfood than the
greasy, cholesterol death you'll find on
the dollar menu at mcdonalds.
Catfood is a viable substitute to a normal
human diet. High in fiber and loaded with
important minerals and vitamins, you'll
be eating a more well rounded diet than
you're stomach has seen in years.
But it gets better. An adult cat can be fed handsomely
for just $8 dollars a month.
We're talking african child support prices.
Of course, you'll be going through slightly
more bags of kibbles than mister blackboots.
The average adult cat weighs just 10 pounds,
but lets face it, you could stand to drop a couple
pants sizes anyway. Lets say you get down to a
healthy 130. At a multiple of 13, your grocery
bill is going to total a paltry $104 a month.
Think of the savings!
And there's more. You're days and nights will be
worry free once cooking and dining out is no more.
No washing dirty dishes. No taking out smelly garbage.
No more hassles with sixteen year olds that can't
understand to hold the cheese from the
cheeseburger.
It's time you started thinking smarter about food.
It's time you thought about catfood.
(this message brought to you, buy catfood)

How to be forgotten by history

2010-06-10T02:03:00.005-04:00

Some are born great, some have greatness thrust upon em',
and others, just as greatness is in sight, go up in curtains
of smoke. Following is an exhaustive list of ways to be
completely forgotten from the pages of time.

1. Invent something of incredible magnitude a day later than
someone else, unbeknownst to either party. All the same work,
all the same results, but your name will get shuffled into the
deck of obscurity.

2. Get incredibly sick and even die within a week of taking some
important office/role. This will frustrate historians and
biographers in their attempts to document anything of import which
you have been party to.

3. Do something so heroic in battle that you along with your dogtags
sink to the bottom of the sea or melt in an indescribable inferno.

4. Upon exploration and discovery of a new land, name the place for
someone else, preferably in no way connected with you or your culture.
You don't want to risk clever minds drawing any connections you
inadvertently leave for fear that they are successful in their
shambolic quest at uncovering the truth.

5. Never write about your findings or travels, and certainly
don't clue anyone else in about anything. You never can be to
sure when some diehard follower will undertake to report all
of your genius. Like Socrates and Jesus you will no doubt
become heralded as an even more enigmatic and important figure
by that pesky institution history.

6. Don't think too deeply or work very hard. Try to push away
anything approaching brilliance and refuse to engage in any
activity in which you have some preternatural ability.
Michael Jordan tried to right this wrong by playing baseball
in the minor leagues, but sadly, he was too late, the damage
had already been done.

7. Live somewhere remote, but don't help anyone. Mother
Theresa's life should be deeply instructive here. Spurn the
advances of beggars and try not to say anything with
compassionate overtones and you should be okay.

By following these 7 steps you'll never have to worry about
'becoming history', and no college student will ever be required
to memorize your name along with some bogus accomplishment you
were purported to have done.

How to win at your favorite game

2010-06-05T03:00:00.003-04:00

there are seven steps that will make you win games.
it really doesn't matter what game you're playing.
once you start using the following techniques, you'll see
unprecedented improvement in your win loss ratio,
GUARANTEED.
1. Anabolic Steroids. I cannot stress to you the importance
of anabolic steroids. A major downfall of this step is that
it doesn't help a great deal in games which don't require
athletic ability. Ex: cards, backgammon, checkers.
Also, in gentlemanly sports like shuffleboard and croquet,
there is rarely any reported gains found in this method.
2. Cheat. I cannot stress the benefits of cheating to win
at your favorite game. This is a very important step because
it technically encompasses most of the other steps. The only
caveat here is so important that it constitutes its own step.
3. Don't get caught cheating. When people play games,
they like to know that the game was played fairly. Your job
is to keep the wool pulled over the eyes of your opponents.
If they think you have been anything less than aboveboard
in your gaming etiquette, your victory may be clutched by the
jaws of defeat.
4. Fix the game. The history of gaming is rife with examples
of reducing the variables for an assured victory. The world series
in 1919, the chess world championship of 1948, the presidential
election of 2000.
5. Know your opponent. In other words, don't play against someone
that can beat you. Find someone who doesn't know how to play your
favorite game very well and beat them at it again and again. Keep an
eye on them getting too good at the game. If they show signs of
figuring out strong tactics, you may want to leave off competing
with them, which leads to the important step of
6. Stopping while you're ahead. This is probably the oldest
trick in the book, but I can't stress it enough. The key here
is to apologize to your opponent about having to run off, but
*insert careful lie here.* You'll leave on top every time.
7. Refuse to admit defeat. Sometimes you can't help losing,
but when the unthinkable occurs, don't accept it. Contest every
call, demand slow motion playback, and if all else fails accuse
the other side of cheating.

By following these seven steps, you'll be winning games as
effortlessly as Tonya Harding and Barry Bonds.

7 Steps to Writing an Unsuccessful Blog

2010-05-17T22:03:00.008-04:00

There has always been the elusive American dream infecting
the sanity of our teeming masses: gold in the hills, god in
the dock, and rock around the proverbial clock. Now, in the
sci-fi laden 2010 it's dreams of internet stardom that
cause blogs to flower like brush and weed across the unending
Texan rangelands.
So the question remains:
"What are 7 things that can be done to assure that
my blog stays forever locked in internet obscurity?"

1) Try to alienate anyone that reeks of being a part of that pesky class 'loyal follower'. You'll be able to spot them a mile away. First they'll follow your blog, and then they'll start mucking up your pristine walls with
comments. Alienation is achieved quickly by disagreeing with
everything they say. Even if that entails contradicting yourself, do it!
You don't want to run any risk of gaining devoted fans.
I won't go into detail about how they can ruin your perfectly
defended niche in your cul de sac of the internet.

2) Never, under any circumstances, tell anyone about your blog. Whether on the street or on the web, you absolutely do not want to run the risk of sparking interest in your work. During a plane ride to Newark I once had the misfortune of sitting next to an aspiring poet. He saw that I was writing in a notebook and felt it necessary to oer’leap all my ministrations against self-promotion had he bothered to ask my opinion. He rehearsed his poem “Gimme’ that old black coat” and then asked if I had any writings to share, to which I gave him a firm and premeditated, “No”. You would be wise to do the same.

3) Never post more often than once every 3-4 months. If, like mosquitoes finding blood, the ever vigilant public still tries to follow your blog, they’ll soon move along to better pastures before you whet their insatiable appetite for biting wit and immeasurable sarcasm. The danger here is that your silence is misinterpreted and you become viewed as a genius, akin to the likes of Thomas Pynchon and J.D. Salinger. Not much to worry about though, something tells me you’re not sitting on your own ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’.

4) Try to write about things of which you do not find interesting, nor could you conceive any creature in the far flung world able to consider of even passing interest. Ex: make your blog a geologists nightmare. Take pictures of people’s gravel driveways and write about picking rocks out of the space between the treads in your tires.

5) Make your blog impossible to navigate. As a golden rule, make sure that there is no way to get directly to your blog. There needs to be a more or less blank page pre-empting your own, complete with triangular sign of man digging and a five second delay before viewers are sent to the real place. The real place being a vertigo inducing inferno of a website. You want ads galore of the most raucous and vile nature. You want 13 pop-ups to barrage the screen. And you want your own content hidden with the assiduity of Waldo.

6) Never make good on any promises you extend to your readers. You want to leave them confused and hopefully even a little bewildered. Trust me, this one tactic alone is powerful enough to both keep would be devotees at bay and assure you blissful internet obscurity for the rest of your blogging days.

ice cream man

2010-05-14T19:47:00.003-04:00

i started hearing molten carnie melodies filtering past the one leveled red bricks that line the avenues behind my apartment. i saw the truck, stickered, complete with rooftop p.a., and who is this guy driving it around. i think i've seen him before. i've sold him popcorn and a pepsi, working for the cinema. i felt studied then. he eyed my drab too big vest and comic bow-tie. he watched for sleight of hand as i scooped the popcorn, nodded his head in time with my footwork from popcorn machine to drink cache. i could see he had the right amount of bachelor stubble, was unkempt enough to be somebody that might know something about art. i was on the stage for six dollars an hour. selling personality and sprezzatura to the andy warhol of ice cream. i ran down the stairs of my apartment with a sick feeling. ice cream man will take my two dollars and sidle from one side of the van to other with his study of me. "ice cream sandwich" i say.
i see him turn. i close my eyes and feel the space. opening and closing the fridge, it could be me or the ice cream man. same self-possessing manner. he returns and mirrors my face and when i take the sandwich his world and mine are symmetrical except that the music is one dial too far left of strange. i see he has a record player and he's playing a 45 at 37 bpms. ice cream truck man's eyes appreciate my line of sight and as i come back to focus on his face there's a slight twist of a grin. he knows his art has been appreciated.

how i defetead world of warcraft

2010-02-19T16:46:00.003-05:00

i just can't stay away from an all consuming internet game.
so last wednesday i marched into wal-mart, bought $80
dollars worth of warcraft disks and a pc with
enough processing power to send deep blue into fits.
I hacked into the internet via sattelite link and there
it appeared, this burning feed of medieval wish
fulfillment. i chose deregulated officer 10th rank
as my class and started training in cosmic blaster
proficiency and four hours later realized i had
made a tremendous mistake.
frustrated, i realized i hadn't aligned myself
with the right political party and had been
deceived by a group of zealots into walking
right into a spaceblock. "ridiculous!" i thought.
greatly angered i telephoned the CEO of
Sony to give him an earful, but after someone
from India didn't understand anything, I
turned my attention back to the riveting
stream of addiction dripping off my
thirty inch plasma screen.
days passed.
i was immersed in a sea of empty mountain dew cans
when it came to me.
there were no religions in wow.
nothing.
no belief system at all.
sure there were political systems and more
special interest groups than stars in the nebulae cluster,
but everyone had been so transfixed by the
bright colors and the mounting experience point tally
they hadn't bothered to consider eschatology, ontology,
the weight of their war encrusted souls.
within two hours i had coded CraftChurch
i fed the gamers with visions of reset and power off.
they were horrified into laying tribute at my feet
all the wealth of the pillars of doom,
they emptied out the storehouses of the black star fortress
and then, perched like some dragon atop his horded mass
of glimmering jewels, i made good on my promise of
the oncoming doom, feeding the main server a crucial
error program, shutting down the whole network.
apocalypse complete.
oh, and my character file's bid is currently up to $1,250 on ebay.

Reanimated body of Michael Jackson a hit with crowds.

2009-11-14T13:46:00.003-05:00

“You don’t even realize anything’s missing” says one pleased fan “He’s locked into the Thriller stage permanently but that’s my favorite look of Michael’s anyway.”
The upswing to Michael’s ragged visage is that while it used to take over five hours to get into the Thriller make-up, now its instant. “He was especially sensitive to the contacts and often had to rewet his eyes, but now he’s a champ, he can keep up the glassy, disaffected zombie gaze all night” says costume director Jane Gnotrill.
What has been difficult to produce, apparently, is anything outside of Thriller. “Basically, if it’s not Thriller, it’s very draining to Michael in his current state” says head choreographer Gaston Hoxe. “But we do what we can. You throw in a couple guest appearances from some great entertainers and Michael really goes into another dimension.”
One wonders where he gets all his energy, after all, he is clinically dead. But night after night the King of Pop lives on, making tracks across the stage with all the finesse he had in life. So far, however, all the performances have been in third world countries (always a first love for Jackson, who continues to walk the streets in golden suits followed in droves by his mottled third world fan base).
“News here that Jackson passed hasn’t yet broken, so ticket sales are as strong as ever” says his production manager Bill T’lie, “The true test for Michael will be in the North American leg of his tour, but we’re hoping to ease into it by playing Panama and the Dominican Republic, places like that, first. That will be a good confidence builder for Jackson who remains deeply affected by public response.”
Overall though the tour is a real otherworldly spectacle, with the roar of the crowd rolling through the stadium every night as Michael sticks his hand out of packed dirt built into the stage floor, emerging as Vincent Price’s voice is played from tape. Unfortunately, Michael’s own voice is being played from tape as well. Right now he’s working fastidiously with his vocal coach Afal Setti. “It’s a problem of breathing, or more to the point, not breathing.”
But Jackson is dedicated and, by opening night in LA next February, he plans on turning off the tapes and turning on the star power that only a performer of his genius could harness from beyond the grave. Long live the King!

The truth behind real estate mogul Nathaniel Sandusky

2009-11-08T16:01:00.003-05:00

“How do you do it Sandusky?”
“Trade secrets my friends, trade secrets.”
That’s the question of the hour. How has Nathaniel Sandusky created a modern day empire out of zilch? In fact, where does Nathaniel Sandusky come from? Those are the questions we’ve set out to answer, and answer them we will to the best of our ability.
The Problem: Nathaniel Sandusky is not a registered American citizen. We looked and the government looked and finally he was located but not in order to banish him, but rather to marvel at the current star of real estate. “Well, he can’t really be kicked off of American soil because he owns most of it now” says Walter Brubeck of Immigration and Naturalization.
Strangely enough, Sandusky despises land. “Oh yes, I have an aversion to land, but that’s what drives me to own all of it” says Sandusky. The question of course, is how is it that a person without national allegiance came to own roughly 36% of all real estate in the country, including 100% of Alaska and Puerto Rico.
The answer: Apparently, in the 1700 and 1800’s, legal documents weren’t prepared very carefully. The basic problem being that human evolution is ongoing and the human brain lacked some important synapse links. Says John Rutledge, professor of law at Gravard University, “Most land grants in America were mind-boggling in their complexity. Ultimately, humans were incapable of reasoning sensibly until about 1910 and still with some there are problems. I’m thinking it’s going to be twelve or more years until evolution really cleans up a lot of the loopholes left in human logic left to us by our ancestor the jackanape.”
The secret: Sandusky is actually an evolved shark. “He isn’t human at all!” says Evan Stevens of Greater Public Banking in Manhattan. “Humans are simply not this aggressive. He is truly a carnivorous beast.” What is interesting is that he signs all his legal documents by clutching a pen in his teeth. “It took a lot of training for him to not bite through the pen.” Says Mitchell Smith, his trainer in Orlando, Florida. “On Tuesdays and Thursdays he does a show where he jumps out of the water and eviscerates a live tuna, but the rest of time he is a slave to his real estate empire.”
So hats off to Sandusky, a beautiful fourteen foot great white with more equity than Bill Gates and the Rothschilds combined.

Garbage Man Arrested for Destroying Material linked to Al-Qaeda

2009-11-02T14:11:00.002-05:00

Late last week garbage collector Mike Douglas from New Jersey was arrested for his connection with the Middle Eastern terrorist group Al-Qaeda. Apparently, he had been dispensing of their written communication since early 2006. It is purported that he further destroyed video and audio messages that the terrorists used to communicate with each other.
“It was the perfect setup,” says Albert Griss, chief secretary of Washington’s Department of Homeland Security, “The terrorists were placing these highly sensitive materials in regular kitchen trash bags and this garbage man was removing it for them right under our noses.”
Freddie Brown, the driver on Douglas’ route was aghast to learn of his partner’s criminal involvement. “It was so nonchalant. I would drive up there and he just threw the bags in the truck like any other house. Sometimes he went ahead and crushed the trash to make more space and sometimes he didn’t. It was like he wasn’t even nervous about the thing and that goes to show how truly warped he was.”
Many of Douglas’ neighbors mentioned that he was mostly quiet, kept to himself, but seemed like a fairly pleasant sort. Jill Davis, head of the neighborhood watch mentioned he was always leaving his residence suspiciously early in the morning.
Douglas couldn’t be reached for comment as he is being held in solitary confinement somewhere offshore so that normal laws regarding cruel and unusual punishment don’t apply. Griss said of this move, “We let Douglas have far too much control over garbage for far too long. Now we’re giving him a real lesson on what it means to take out the trash!”

Letters to Andaluni

2009-10-20T22:28:00.002-04:00

Dear mr. andaluni
How do you do such great tricks?
Your friend, willie

Dear willie
There is no such thing as a trick. Clever men devised the idea of calling magic a trick so they wouldn’t be cast out of society. But now, fortunately, no one really minds if you dabble in sorcery. So I will tell my tale:
On the eleventh day of the eleventh month, eleven years ago, I arose at an hour past midnight and walked deep into the woods. There I did secretive things that would place a blight upon your mind if I spoke candidly regarding all the horrible trials I faced. There were five days of the trials and voices from out of the dark that tore bitterly into my soul. But to make a long story short, after all that I’ve had really no problem getting out of shackles and belts and all that.
-the Great Andaluni

Dear mister Andaluni
What is the scariest trick that you have done?
Your pal, little jim

Dear little jim
I was once shot of a cannon into a tar pit, shackled, with belts prohibiting the movement of my legs, arms, neck and torso. I couldn’t free myself of my bonds in the tar but I found an intact carcass of a wooly mammoth and used the shackles to cut into its belly, there I bit into his lungs and breathed ten million year old air for a half minute, until I was able to free myself of the shackles. From there it was touch and go, but I rapidly made my way out of the mortal danger of the tar pit.
-the Great Andaluni

Dear mister andaluni
Will you ever jump out of a plane at high altitudes and land on the ground without using a parachute?
Your buddy, billy

Dear billy
Not unless I am shackled first.
-the Great Andaluni

Church of the Living Dead

2009-10-13T02:17:00.004-04:00

What started as a huddle of bodies on the streets of
Bluebank, West Virginia in the late 1970’s
has slowly amassed into a movement across age, race, and even
nationality. The Church of the Living Dead figures into the spiritual
scene every bit as prominently as Catholicism and Mormonism, and
perhaps more so because of it’s unprecedented unification of
so many disparate groups. Polls show that right behind the
scientology, the Church of the Living Dead is the fastest
growing of all current ecumenical movements.
In response to the accelerating popularity of the church,
Rocky Tenant, chief apostle of the association of the living dead
said, "people know when they are in a church that is really alive
and they know when they're in a church that is really dead.
What they cannot yet distinguish is a church that is
simultaneously alive and dead."
“Our church has a very important calling.” Said pastor Wayne
Ashe while treating a gash on his hand he demurred as only a scratch,
despite the arrangement of teeth-marks resembling a human mouth.
Continuing Ashe said, “We do our best to reach out to the disheveled
masses that come through every week, and sometimes there are
casualties, but we truly have a passion for all the lifeless souls out there.”
Certainly one of the greatest hot-button issues currently surrounding
the church is the taking of the sacrament, which has often resulted in what
has been described as “nothing short of a bloodbath.”
Notwithstanding the controversy, Tenant said the church would
Forge on into even the darkest places in America. In his words,
“Our methods of bringing in the lost are nearly irresistible. First there’s
a knock at your front door and then your backdoor, which is usually
followed by your windows, and once they get a captive audience
integration into the fold ensues quite rapidly.”
Look for the Church of the Living Dead to move into your community
Soon!

Defying odds, magician escapes local prison

2009-10-11T11:04:00.002-04:00

Yesterday a Campbellsville man broke free from
the city jail. The sheriff's deputy had handcuffed
the man, placed him in a glass encased tank
full of water and securely locked all the doors,
gates, bars, and buckles that make up the
Campbellsville facility. "This place is state of the art"
said rusty smith, protectorate of the town's keep.
"we even have our own hand-held waxer for the floors."
The man in question, Billy Andulini, alias
'The Great Andulini' requested admittance
to the jail and, casing the place out, made a bet
with some of the guards that he could loose his bonds
in just under three minutes. "We didn't think it could
be done" said raymond squires, a watchman at the jail.
"needless to say, i had to hotfoot it over to the pawn shop
to sell off a watch, a few pairs of handcuffs,
and my standard issue six shooter to make good on my end
of the bargain."
Next tuesday night Andulini is going to perform the truly
harrowing feat of taking 100 sequential punches to the gut
while making the moon disappear.

Chinese win new moon race!

2009-09-15T18:28:00.007-04:00

The race to the 'new moon' ended yesterday when Chinese astronaut
Yao-Li confirmed to a press conference in Beijing that China
had beaten the U.S. to the new moon. A flurry of questions followed.
Journalists were skeptical as there hadn't been a launch or even
pronouncement of a launch. Moments later, a writer from China's
branch of 'Redbook' figured out Yao-Li's joke.
The astronaut was censured heavily by the space program, but the
episode, boggling the Chinese media, caused their eye to focus on
Shenzou VII more closely. After examining pictures and corroborating
the evidence, it was clear that Yao-Li was delirious. "He looked
very sleep deprived" said Jo-Tsang H'chen. "There were deep bags
under his eyes and he laughed often and nervously."
The Chinese media was on the cusp of publishing their findings when
representatives of their government showed up with video of
Yao-Li and his team playing chinese checkers on the moon. The wind
was whipping the Chinese flag, and the rice fields spread far as
the eye could see, but in the words, spoken in unison, of the
entire Chinese media, "it was definitely the moon."

Innovation in listening to music!

2009-09-13T15:33:00.005-04:00

Arthur Bowdinsky, Director of Classical Studies at Clavichord
University released his findings on Tuesday regarding the
structure of music as language, turning the world upside down.
Bowdinsky discovered that if a person concentrates on a specific
formula they will cease to hear the music, and the sound is
replaced by conversation. His discovery proves that the mathematical
quality of music allows for a truly universal language as speakers
of different tongues all report understanding the same things.
Of course, it is never exactly like spoken language, but it is
similar enough that the ideas can be readily understood.
It is language in the same strange way that one perceives
an image out of a computer generated picture of dots.
Once one understands how to look,
they can see what is really there.
Of course, some people never catch on. They sit and listen
and there is nothing, merely music. Bowdinsky says of them,
“that miserable lot still talk about rhythm and tone,
all paltry topics really, once you’ve come to grasp the
real meaning, the intrinsic dialogue underlying the music.”
For instance Beethovens 5th:
“Oh I can never seem to find my shoes!”
“That’s ok they are ugly anyway.”
“Give me a break you know you have no taste.”
“You say that because you never loved me!”
There have been intense reactions to the discovery of the true
meaning of classical music. Many phd’s holding top spots in
renowned colleges across the country have abandoned their
posts in disgust. Says Dr. Ronald Schmutz, “It’s unbelievable.
I trained my ear for decades to hear the slightest variation in
pitch, the subtlest move of the bow across the string, and now
all I hear is constant bickering. I’m going into retail.”
All the music of Mozart is now reported as unlistenable filth.
Pollyanna Grubinkle said, “Mozart’s work is one big scandal.
I was trying to teach a group class of of seven year olds one
of his sonatas and once I slowed it down to show them the
technique, all those little faces went white and they scattered,
running off to be consoled by their moms.”
Interestingly, the only music that is inoffensive across the
board is Irish bar music. When asked about the strange
phenomenon, Scotty McHelson said,
“Aye me bren washy, take yer’ brins to the scuttle wit’ it!”
While inoffensive, the message is reported widely as
‘unclear’ and ‘indistinct’.
Currently Bowdinsky is working on a formula that will allow
dialogue to be heard as the shattering of glass
against a hardwood floor.

Animism themed fun park 'Animerica' disgruntles populace

2009-07-08T15:36:00.006-04:00

For old time religionists of Utah, a mecca for mormons,
things are getting a bit shaken up. Hiro Kawahara of Happy Fun, Inc!
is setting up what will become the largest theme
park in America: 'Animerica'.
Normally, the increased tourism from a park of this size is a welcome
boon to a community, but the denizens of Smithfield think differently.
"This is the wrong community for an Eastern religion themed park"
said Reginald Bocephus Smith, head bishop in
the first reformist mormon church of smithfield, Utah.
"What we have is a heavenward community,
and these cultists are moving in on our territory. We are very
intolerant with cults and strange beliefs. What we have is the truth,
nothing more, and certainly nothing less.
So, when we see these guys marching in here
with notions about the metaphysical
realm that don't even begin to make sense, things get a little tense."
When asked why Happy Fun, Inc! would set up their theme park
"Animerica" in a region known principally for its religion, Kawahara
smiled and muttered something in Japanese.

Creation Museum ticket prices 'evolve'

2009-07-02T05:16:00.003-04:00

The price of admittance to the creation museum in northern Kentucky

is going up by $2.50 per head beginning the 4th of July weekend.

Curator of the museum, Anton Scaliazano said of the increase,

"In the world of museums, it's survival of the fittest. People are

naturally going to select the most interesting and best looking

museums to visit, so to keep up with all the change going on in

technology and in what people want to see,

we've got to raise ticket prices. I mean, things change, everyone

knows that. We've got to adapt to the times or these halls are

going to turn into an artifact of the past."

photoshoots: vamp glam

2009-06-22T16:20:00.000-04:00

no one wants to see any more cliched senior pictures:
girl beside tree, boy on hay bale, girl in barn wearing overalls,
boy beside creek shirtless, boy or girl posing awkwardly
in alleyway with single empty glass bottle on window ledge.
it's all been done too many times. If you stop to think about it,
boring repetition is really the same reason
old languages develop into new languages. Everyone gets sick
of describing things the same way over and over so they change
stuff around. groz becomes black, le tigre becomes the tiger,
and yahweh becomes jesus. it's all quite systematic if you care
to think about it. so for this reason i have started to train local
photographers in the art of shooting in glamorous vampire idiom.
i would start my own business but i'm just one person, and i realize
i don''t have the wherewithal to handle the demanding volume of
customers that want to immortalize their youth in high wan and
drawn fashion. The future of high school year books is in endless
pages of a bloodless couture look. the secret of course is all in the
lighting as well as convincing people against the peculiar operation
of body bronzing via tanning salons. The light of the sun, just like
the german, spanish, and hebrew languages, is a forgotten thing.
The soft gleam of the moon highlighting impossibly chic features
is the present and future language of beauty.

pyschological study at McDonalds raises ethical concern

2009-06-22T16:10:00.002-04:00

At Studtgarten College in Amherst, MA Dr. Beaumont
Thames, professor of abnormal psychology
was called into question for a study he undertook at
McDonald's restaurant. Over a period of roughly seven months,
Thames worked the night shift at a McDonald's only blocks from
the University where he is a talented and respected man of the
arts and sciences. During the day he was filling young minds with
knowledge, and by night he was filling stomachs with cheap,
crappy food. It has been pieced together through his journals
that he was constantly encouraging employees to increase the
serving portion size of the food they were eating on their breaks.
A normal big mac contains four 1.6 oz hamburger patties,
but toward the end of the study, two of the employees were
stacking on nine or even ten patties at Beaumont's behest.
The academic community is shocked at this scandal:
"It is obscene that a man of such great ability would use his
powers to demean people in this way." said Dr. Eugene Hawkins.
"But I feel great responsibility, culpability even, because in all
actuality this experiment was as much my idea as his, but for me
it was merely theoretical. I never intended on running the test,
but rather, was engaged by the idea of it." To convince the
employees to stack the patties on higher and higher, Beaumont
awarded the greatest eaters with prizes, including cash,
high calorie energy drinks, and beef jerky. In some cases,
Beaumont persuaded employees to wolf down fries while
handing customers back change. "We thought if we could
influence the eating behavior of the employees
at any given fast-food establishment, we could also influence
the volume of sales," said Dr. Hawkins. "What we never
expected was for the people being handed food by grossly
overweight employees to not notice or care."
continued Dr. Hawkins. "We thought people would turn in
abhorrence to the ungainly sight of rapid and voracious eaters
of fast-food, but apparently, in our culture such activity is
considered normative. No one even blinked."
For now, the McDonald's in question has given Beaumont
a .07 cent per hour raise and Studtgarten is forcing his hand
in teaching summer Independent study
courses without compensation.

Black Dot in Cinema: Regurgitation or Artistic Revolution

2009-05-30T12:38:00.001-04:00

Questions have raged in the art scene recently in
speculation over the originality of black dot.
There is much evidence that the creators of black dot
didn't create anything at all, rather
they lifted a preexistent motif and expanded
its awareness. The question is whether this is deliberate
uninspired copying or ingenious and prophetic appropriation
of an oblique but powerful symbol.
"It hit me while reading the Robert Louis Stevenson's classic
'Treasure Island' to my son Bradley" said Johnson Reed of
Reed Brothers Art Gallery in Boston, Massachusetts.
"There's a recurring image of sardonic quality in what is
referred to as the black spot that the pirates keep passing
off to each other. It's like the hot potato from hell, as the
implications of finding it on one's person can be catastrophic."
Bradley refused to comment but Reed continued without pause.
"Basically Black Dot in the art gallery is a strong rebuke against
current trends in the art world. It's like Jurtull and Heisman
have handed the unwitting and spent artistic community their
summons to the firing squad." Reed pantomimed his contribution
to the firing squad, sighting his mark with an imaginary rifle .
"It is now completely evident that Pieter and Rudolph are the
new corsairs. When art stagnates there must be an overthrow!
Raise the jolly roger! Put all the imposters with their LED screens
and popular images in the hold! Fire the cannon!
Pass around the cask of rum!
Get a rustic ship tattooed on your bicep!" Reed carried on
in this way for several minutes to the point of confused rambling
and then after a long pause filled with frantic breathing, he
cackled, pointed at me and said "You tell them all that the black
dot is on their hands now!"

Chrysler Convertible

2009-05-30T12:36:00.000-04:00

Rigidity manifests itself in the human spirit time and time again,
and always with the same results--failure and loss.
When men are unable to change and accept what is new,
they die. But it is proven that those who drive our
convertibles can change, and they do so rapidly.
With a thoughtless touch of a button change is in the air
for those wisdom filled souls who drive Chrysler Convertibles,
and the barons of the business world know this all too keenly.
statistics show that merely driving a convertible makes
one 70 times more likely to be hired by a fortune 500 company,
10 times more likely to become a CEO within 12 years,
and 200 times more likely to have beautiful children
waving and smiling to the crowd of a Fourth of July parade
as they sit on the back of the car wearing all manner of
beauty pageant regalia. See your Chrysler dealer today.
Tell him you are ready for success, both for yourself
and your progeny, and he will put the key in your hands.

Daewoo

2009-05-18T16:17:00.000-04:00

This is the age of information.
Everything to know lies open,
but sometimes no one knows
what they need to know about.
There are now too many competing voices.
So much static charging its way through the arena of
good sense that humanity is left confused and misinformed,
bombarded by the senseless and depraved rather than
given clear messages by the reputed and trustworthy.
When it comes to automobiles theres only one word to hear:
Daewoo. You may not know much about Daewoo.
In fact, you may know nothing at all about Daewoo,
but that's because of the Information Age previously discussed.
You see, the one clear message you'll hear all day is to go
test drive Daewoo.
You don't need to think about cars,
You need to think about Daewoo

Black Dot: The Art of Incongruency

2009-05-09T12:51:00.000-04:00

Black dot is the next great movement in art. it is, in the words
of it's progenitor Pieter Jurtull,
"a new wave of despair and understated squalor pouring life
back into an art scene that was dying by thriving."
"too much! too perfect!" cries Samantha Heinrich
curator of Manhattan's Haute Museum. "Clean lines, clear
edges, and bold vibrant color are an effete memory in the decadence
of our times." just months ago, visitors to the Haute would have
seen color reminiscent of the mid-eighties meeting the psychadelic
design sensibilities of the sixties. "No more Fuscia and pink circles
bombarding your retina. Now it's all black dot working into the id
with the speed and intensity of the bullet train
cutting it's way from kyoto to tokyo. everything blurs and rearranges
itself and the effect on the viewer is once frenetic and beatific." said
Henre Rice, a major player in the black dot movement.
To create their art, Rice and Jurtull trek outdoors and memorize
landscapes, return home, and render the images in black dot
"sometimes it takes me 12 damn hours of staring at a particular
landscape before i can return home and put it into black dot,
but it's worth it. it creates art on the threshold of utter vilification
and exhuberance of the soul." Jurtell says.
Look for black dot to take over the galleries
from paris to new york in the next few years.

Picturing Madness or Black Dot and the Art of the Desecrated Mind

2009-05-09T12:44:00.001-04:00

At no time in the history of western art has there been a movement
so filled with utter vilification and rage. "When our patrons view
black dot" says Samantha Heinrich curator of the Haute Museum,
"They are at once terrified and driven mad." Since the
opening of Henre Rice and Pieter Jurtull's black dot exhibit there
have been numerous cases of severe sickness coming over those
viewing the pieces. Spasms, vomiting, fainting, asthmatic coughs,
nervous ticks, anxiety attacks. It's all a result of the
momentous and final image of black dot. "Black dot is about the
beginning and the end" says Rudolph Heisman, Professor of Art
History at the Nobel College of Art and Design in New York,
"it is the first image of light and matter escaping from
the size of a pinhole to form galaxies, and it is the black hole resting
in the center of time and space, pulling all thought and form into its
massive and moribund grip." Because of the wreckage the black dot
exhibit has left in its wake, there is a lawsuit against Jurtull, Rice,
and the Haute Museum. When asked if they felt any culpability
for more than a dozen cases of permanent brain damage linked
directly to the act of viewing black dot, the artists and museum
would not come forward with any statement. However Rudolph
Heisman was more than happy to comment, saying
"to conceive of the absolute weight on the self as a living entity,
responsible for creating meaning with every encroaching and
irrepressible moment. this is what black dot is manifesting.
it is the genius and horror of black dot. in the history of man,
there has always been what is referred to as 'the sacred' for the
Hebrews their highest artistic expression was the ark of the
covenant, and to look upon it unprepared was certain and
irrevocable death. the collection of black dot at the Haute is the
sacrosanct relic of our times." Some have posited that black dot
could be a modern version of King Arthur's sword in the stone, and
suggest our leaders should be sent in to behold black
dot to test there mettle. However, for now, because of the severity
and range of violent reaction to black dot, the Haute has closed off
public access to the exhibit. In the words of Rudolph Heisman
"the world is always in need of, but never prepared for, an expression
so utterly soul annihilating as black dot."

i have recently been writing in response to relationship advice.

2009-04-07T11:42:00.002-04:00

I got a lovely girl's number tonight. Had planned on phoning her tomorrow. Is that ideal? -Alek

Alek, based on the limited information you haveleft, and the fact that you have asked complete strangers to answer a question far beyond the scope and ability of mere mortals, i can only surmise that you probably don't want to call her and therefore shouldn't. However, i'm willing to work with you a little bit so I have graciously compiled a five question criterion to apply to any blind calling situation which will point you in the right direction.
1. Is the party in question (whomever will be receivingyour dubious phonecall) above the legal age, or as a concession, within the age of consent so long as you intend on coming out in the open with your intentions to the party's legal guardians?
2. Does the party in question appear to have any ties with occult activity/terroristic involvement/association with communist party leaders (further, is the party in question tied in any way with the KGB, ODESSA, IRS, etc.)
3. Has the party in question made overt vampiric references. I won't beat around here, you don't want to be lured into vampire society, I know eternal life sounds great, but the catch-22 is that vampires are really undead creatures, so you can kiss life goodbye. The method by which you can quickly ascertain whether or not the party in question isindeed a vampire is if she winced when you walked pasta street preacher, or if you never saw her outside the cover of night. As an added precaution, however, many times vampires, and male vampires at that, not the voluptuous women which you might imagine, hire attractive girls toset them up with their next take. That pretty girl giving out her phone number might be your ticket to Transylvania.
4. Did you extract the phone number from a lady of the night or a slick poster with a picture of some saucy looking dame?
5. Upon parting from the party in question, did you laterdiscover that certain valuable possessions were no longeron your person (ex: wallet, cell phone, watch, cuff links,rosary, clove of garlic) as a sidenote, if your clove of garlic has gone missing you might think you could have full assurance that she is not a vampire, and only a kleptomaniac, however, this is most certainly a sign that she is indeed working for a vampire organization and has stripped you defenseless for the gritty rondevoux in which she hopesto ensnare you. So, if you have have answered yes to 1-2 of these criterion, I advise you to give pause before dialing. If you have answered yes to 3-4 of these criterion, I strongly advise you to take a holiday, and maybe consider moving to a different side of town. If you have answered 'yes' on all 5 accounts, I want youto stop taking drugs today. The girl you met was probably your landlord in the stairway demanding rent. Ok man, good luck with the girl and everything!

Relationship Advice: mean sister in san francisco

2009-04-07T11:41:00.002-04:00

I'm having trouble getting along with my sister, she's really mean, and when i want to hang out, she always leaves to hang out with her friends and often stays out most of the night.Why is she acting this way and what can i do to repair this relationship?- sad in san francisco

Franny, i want to preempt this message by first offering my heartfelt apology for what you must be going through right now, and secondly I want to alert youto the grave possibility that your sister has become a vampire.There are a few salient points that have led irrevocably to this devastating end and a couple of ways you can confirm that this is indeed the problem which I will unpack in five-point fashion, which is the given style of this column.
1. Leaving to hang out with friends is a really bad sign. I'm not going to go into it, because i'm sure that we're already on the same page, but you need to know just the sort of friends that she is running with now. hold a costume party and tell her she can invite her friends. if a carload of vampires shows up, then you can kiss suspicion goodbye.
2. meanness. are vampires generally friendly beings? (asking rhetorical questions is not the given style of this column, however, following the knowledge that a member of your family has recently become a vampire, there is little time left for niceties)
3. you live in san francisco, which is a hotbed for all manner of opprobrious activity,and while no one really foresees something of this magnitude coming, rest assured,a growing psychic and paranormal loving community added to the washout from the drug culture always yields a veritable army of undead, ranging from run of the mill werewolves to zombies and ultimately to the mother of them all, the vampire.
4. unfortunately, you have only just missed your window to dress up like a vampire on halloween to nonchalantly gauge her reaction. but i suggest getting a book of costumes, circling a vampire outfit, and showing it to her while asking if thatwould make a good costume for next year.
5. be careful about sending your question out to *other* advice columnists. most all advice columnists will try to force bizarre advice onto any situation, refusing to look at the facts and reading their pet theory into everything they see.

Relationship Column: Bedwildered in Baltimore

2009-04-07T11:40:00.001-04:00

Dear Joe, My husband doesn't seem to love me any more. Whenever he is home from work (and that is rare) when I try to look at him kindly, he scowls back at me. What makes me feel the worst is that he has cut himself out of all our family portraits. I just don't know what to do. Bewildered in baltimore

Hey there Baltimore! Sad to say, this scenario is all too common, and it usually stems from one or more different causes which I will reveal in characteristic 5-point fashion.
1. You're probably looking at your husband at all the wrong times, and by that I mean this guy is probably really stressed out with all of the different roles he has to perform. I mean he's not just a husband you know. He's got a demanding job where he has to curry favor with an entire hierarchy of monomaniacal businessmen, and then there's all of those kids when he gets home. His scowl, as you put it, is probably communicating a fun-loving sort of message like: Wow! I love you for everything you do here. Or, Boy! Our life is kinda crazy but i'm sure glad we do it together every step of the way!
2. You shouldn't conclude too quickly that your husband cutting himself out of family portraits is a bad thing. That you feel that way probably indicates there is a greater trust issue that you need to resolve in yourself. It is very likely that your husband has a new found interest in scrapbooking, and wants to use only the best pictures of himself to create the ultimate book of memories. If your picture goes missing soon, you'll know that this is indeed the case.
3. Okay, I was going to pass over this one, but gut feelings are usually right, so, I think you might want to really pay attention to this particular insight. If, and this is truly against all odds, the problem somehow isn't with you, i'm afraid to say your husband might be dabbling with sorcery. Everything you said points squarely with a passion for spellcasting, probably to summon a high level vampire from the chaos realms. I'd watch out for the kids, because if your husband backfires, he could suck the whole neighborhood into what is referred to in academic circles as one of Diefendorf's Holes, and can that ever get ugly!
4. Rather than sorcery it could be that he's a warlock... No, It really sees unlikely for this to be his fault. I mean, in the 1980s I counseled scores of women just like you and I observed that the men were never to blame when this sort of situation you described was occurring. I've got a stronger hunch now that you are a vampiress and you've cut out those pictures yourself to subtly paint a family portrait excluding the man you've been conspiring against all these years.
5. I'm really shocked that you would have the gall to write this column faking a problem, but now it's all clear to me. You believed that if I didn't see through your little plan, then you could pull it off. Well, i'll say that you almost had me but, luckily for our completely oblivious husband, I caught all of the clues and unveiled your terrible plan. Better luck next time Baltimore.

Honda Civic

2009-04-07T11:35:00.004-04:00

If you think you can live without the new Honda Civic, you are sadly mistaken. We hired astrologers to foretell the future's next great car, and guess what, it's the one staring you in the face right now. This car has more horsepower than a pack of Mongolian raiders advancing over the far-eastern lands. As the ultimate test, we found a family of Indians living deep in the great Brazilian rainforest and we put them in the car on a cross country tour of South America. In two days they had lost every vestige of their brutish culture, were speaking perfect English, and taking photographs from the gratifyingly spacious windows of our sedan. When Mombasai, the Chief of the tribe, exited from his seat of Western enlightenment and engineering, he only had one thing to say, "When in Jungle, no life. When see Civic, Mombasai become civilized." So the choice is before you, stay in the dark ages or advance at the forefront of the new bright century.

Infiniti

2009-04-07T11:34:00.002-04:00

infiniti means the world stops and starts with the key you have
resting in the right pocket of your designer jeans.
if you want to go, then there's only one option.
Our sedan offers the only possibility that humanity has at redemption.
One mile at a time you will know you are better than the rabble
you pass on the street. Infiniti never had a time limit,
and neither will you once you are in control of the one hope
for deliverance in the uncertain and dark world you are forced
to inhabit. With but the gentlest movement of your right foot
worlds will fall by in a blur of motion and color and you will exult
at the knowledge of your superiority.

Infiniti: because anything less is worthless proletariat sentiment.

Oldsmobile

2009-04-07T11:33:00.004-04:00

You wouldn't play Russian roulette with a loaded gun.
You wouldn't hole yourself up in some nondescript
Texan bunker with a passel of death-wishing frontiersmen
or a wild-eyed polygamist cult leader. And you wouldn't
lock yourself away in a nuclear fall-out shelter without
first triggering an apocalyptic meltdown of all human society.
Not unless you were behind the protective wheel of an Oldsmobile.
With the door closed and the seat-belt fastened,
there may as well not be an outside world.
Be it war, witch-hunt, or obscene whackadoo
our sedan offers real safety, for real life situations.
Oldsmobile, you may be the offender, but you won't be the victim.

Honda Accord

2009-04-07T11:33:00.001-04:00

Honda Accord. In our present hour of confusion and turmoil, where unstable jihadists and freaked out suburban youth alike plot out thedestruction of society, a real way to peace is in high demand.That's what makes the Honda Accord so special. It is the one motor vehicle able to placate the entire spectrum of negative human emotion and thought. Anger, hate, and malice, the oldfuel for war and violence, evaporate into a weird memory in thepresence of the Accord. We tested our sedan by starting a race riot inL.A. and then cruising the model through the midst of looters andwild eyed beatniks out of their mind with the psychology of the ragingcrowd. Not at all to our surprise, when our cars passed by onthe roads, sense returned to men immediately. Goods werereturned to stores, volunteer fire departments were formed,and everyone threw their weapons into a great bonfire. Peace returned to the city, now the only thing left is for the Accord to find it's way into your garage.

Lexus

2009-04-07T11:32:00.001-04:00

The one thing you may think you already know about our
superior automobiles is their exorbitant pricing.
In the past if you excused yourself for not spending
so much on a car because you didn't have the resources
to warrant such an expense, we would have agreed and
thought highly of you for possessing such wisdom.
But here at Lexus,we know our products excellence and
we decided we wouldn't take financial limitations as
an answer any longer. Our vehicle is the embodiment
of the maxim, "It takes money to make money."
To prove the solvency of our automobiles we
rounded up the dregs of society and gave them their
very own high-end luxury car. Most of the crew were
on skid row, either rolling around in their own filth
or out of their minds from government conducted
tests from the 60s. Notwithstanding the gritty
circumstances of their collective pasts, the men we
found were certifiably broke,and had no chance of
earning an honest dollar. Everything changed when
they began cruising the town in a Lexus.Now that group
have all made the short list of who's who among
businessmen in America and each have trophy wives
and sharp looking golden retriever type dogs running
the wide acreage surrounding the pristine and aged
mansions they bought from their earnings.
Once you have your own Lexus,there's no end in sight
to your potential as a moneymaking Wall-street genius.
Lexus: Where Luxury Begins

Volkswagen

2009-04-07T11:31:00.001-04:00

Volkswagen. Great Car. Family. Enjoyment. Wealth. Volkswagen.
Snooze Button. Tan Skin. Job Promotion. Volkswagen.
Tranquility. Happiness. Strength. Laughter. Volkswagen.
Shared Experience. Beauty. Volkswagen.
Deep life restoring breath. First Kiss. Volkswagen.
Perfection. Armistice Day. Volkswagen.
Absolute power. Greatness of Soul. Volkswagen.
Now close eyes and picture your incredible life in a. Volkswagen.