Posts Tagged God
The Men From Outer Space
Posted by Keith Spillett in Existential Rambings on June 24, 2014
“King Christ,this world is all aleak;
and lifepreservers there are none:” -ee cummings
There is no Overman…only an Outerman.
We are The Outerman. They are The Innerman. Made from the same material. Subject to the same illusion. The two share nothing in common beyond circumstance.
The Outerman does not stand above the world of The Innerman, rather we are mired in it. We watch its absurdities not from a distance, but from a terrible proximity.
We bare the scars of The Innerman’s creations. We live in the demented cesspool of their need for acceptance. Adoration that will never come from the other Innermen. They are blind. Each alone in the company of Others. Each pantomiming human form. Each actors on a stage that stretches from dawn till death.
Both The Innerman and The Outerman are prisoners of the same sickening carnival, the only difference between the two is The Outerman recognizes it to be what it is. No superstition can save him. No machine can revive him. He walks to his fate with the dignity and honor of a man who will not accept the debasement of delusion.
The Outerman looks in the mirror and sees a product of alienation. An alien in a world of aliens. A jigsaw piece that does not fit. Awake among dreamers. There is no Hollywood ending for him or anyone else. There is only decay.
The Innerman looks in the mirror and hopes somehow to mold his face to the reflect the blank stare of the other Innermen. He can never get it right no matter how hard he tries. Never fast enough, never strong enough, never smart enough. Everyday he hopes he’ll see a different image in front of him. If he could just find the formula. The Man With The Answer. But there is no Man and there is No Answer.
The Innerman’s world is one of violence. Violence not in the sense of harm towards others (although some choose that path), but a violent ignorance that turns a blind eye to the suffering in their midst. The Cause portion of the equation forgotten. The Effect always a mystery.
“Why do they hate us?” they wonder aloud, never seeing the answer apparent to anyone not forever trapped in fantasy. Violence is the righteousness of the provincial and the tyranny of the obvious. The world of the Innerman is a dream inside of a dream inside of a dream, with a waking nightmare always somewhere in the corner of his eye.
The Innerman is doomed. Even God won’t save him. Why would He bother? He is too busy poisoning children with cancer, creating horrors like ebola and teaching his followers to hate that which makes them human.
He is the God of letting good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people. He is not The God of Love, He is The God of Pestilence. The best thing God could be is a fantasy. For if he is not, He is a sadist.
Both The Outerman and The Innerman are bound together. They walk to the same gallows, suffocated by the same rope. The Outerman calls it a hanging. The Innerman calls it salvation.
God: “I Did What I Had To In Order To Prevent ‘Lulu Two’”
Posted by Keith Spillett in Excessive Cruelty Towards Strangers on February 26, 2014
God Angrily Dismissing Questions From Reporters About “Lulugate”
In a press conference outside his home in Valdosta, Georgia, God today admitted responsibility for committing “several crimes against humanity” including “ravaging Lou Reed’s body with disease” in order to stop Metallica from collaborating on a second album.
“Look, I know I created a world where many horrible things happen. War, famine, earthquakes, tornados, babies born without heads, I can live with all that. However, James Hetfield again declaring himself to be a piece of furniture is where I draw the line,” pronounced God moments before he ascended into the clouds for an afternoon meeting with rap legend Eazy-E.
God is no stranger to controversy. While he has been responsible for many of the greatest miracles ever to take place, he has also gained a reputation as a vengeful, jealous God and, by some estimates, has been responsible for the deaths of over 107 billion people throughout the course of human history. Some critics have gone as far as accusing God of the manufacture and use of several biological weapons including the bubonic plague, cancer and the Ebola virus.
Some of God’s critics claim his treatment of humans is excessive and even bizarre. Lot Markowitz, a traveling salesman from Gomorrah, Pennsylvania, remembers God’s behavior as being extremely erratic.
“He destroys two cities completely, kills everyone, but lets my family go, right? Then, all of a sudden, my wife turns around and she’s a pillar of salt. What sort of weird, sick creature would do that?!?!”
God also has been known to play the occasional inappropriate practical joke. He once told his faithful servant Abraham to climb up to the top of Mount Moriah and kill his beloved son Isaac. Only moments before the murder of this small child, God, hardly able to keep a straight face, stopped Abraham and boomed out “Just Kidding!!!”
In spite of his recent indiscretions, many believed God’s ending of the Cold War and introduction of additional cable television channels had signaled a “kinder, gentler God”.
However, according to several confirmed sources, God not only smote Lou Reed but also threatened to cover each member of Metallica from head to toe in boils and send a flood to destroy the city of Cleveland, Ohio if they released anything else they had written in tandem with the rock legend.
Many bloggers had speculated that God took retribution on Metallica skinsman Lars Ulrich by robbing him of his ability to play drums as punishment for his work on the first “Lulu” album. However, those charges have been brushed aside by many in the metal community who have listened to Ulrich’s drumming since “…And Justice For All” and are well aware that he was stripped of those powers back in 1988, well before the dreaded 2011 release.
2014 In Review: Year of The Metal Subgenre
Posted by Keith Spillett in General Weirdness on April 3, 2013
A near tsunami of new metal bands came to the forefront of the American music scene in 2014. After Obama signed the controversial law in 2013 that outlawed country music, boy bands and songs by coke addicted former Mouseketeers, metal began to take off as the most popular form of musical expression in the land.
A wave of new bands brought in a flood of popular subgenres. After all, how can you possibly catch the attention of an audience numbed into a near coma by a never-ending stream of cute kitten pictures on their computer without some sort of hook?
Years back, a number of metal bands figured out that by coming up with new subgenres you can effectively con the audience into the belief that they are experiencing something totally state-of-the-art. This was a brilliant assessment, because truthfully, there are only so many ways you can cook an egg. If you take the story out of metal, it’s mostly just a bunch of sweaty, badly dressed people making loud noises for a bunch of sweaty, badly dressed people who are apoplectically staring into The Nothing.
Honestly, how different is one three and a half minute thrash song from another? Is technical death metal really all that unique in comparison to, say, regular old garden-variety death metal? Thus, God created the subgenre and gave us a way to turn tiny, obscure distinctions into whole schools of thought and belief. One man’s doom is another man’s sludge, as the old saying goes. Or something.
When the next civilization digs through the rubble a thousand years from now and finds all the 2014 issues of Metal Maniacs it will be clear, this was The Year of The Metal Subgenre. So, it is with great pleasure that I present to you the best new subgenres created in 2014 along with the band that best represents that style.
New Wave of Soviet Socialist Metal (NWOSSM or NWOCCCP)
When I think about 1980’s power metal, my mind often drifts to the Soviets. Many people would argue that very little great creativity came out of Russia and its satellite states in the 80’s. Clearly those people haven’t heard some of the early albums by Lenin’s Tomb or Khrushchev’s Shoe. As young Russians look back on the glorious days of bureaucratic inefficiency that marked the end of the Soviet Empire, many of them have started playing the music that dominated that era.
Best Band: Iron Curtain
Unblackened Yachtcore
This quirky fusion between the raw, earthy tones of Christian black metal and 1970 and 80’s soft rock caught fire in 2014. Many music aficionados were looking for a way to reconcile their passion for the music of Michael McDonald and the songs of Darkthrone. This cutting edge subgenre gave them the perfect combination. Lyrically, it blends elegant prose from the New Testament with poignant stories about the dreams and inner longings of Yuppies.
Best Band: Captain Trips and Tenille
Proto Originalist Doom
Who would have believed that doom metal could possibly be blended with the text of Supreme Court decisions written by Antonin Scalia in order to create a new style of music? Dark, heavy, Sabbath inspired guitar riffs are used here to celebrate the spirit of unbridled judicial restraint and the idea that just about every thought that was formulated after 1787 is entirely worthless.
Best Band: Woe vs. Wade
Post-Marxist Extremely Technical Progressive Rawlsian Eco Thrash (PMETPRET)
More of a social movement than a style of music, PMETPRET bands have attempted to use technical death metal as a tool of creating social justice and encouraging recycling.
Best Band: Fates Warming
Anatomical Glam Grindslam
Grindcore was a dying subgenre until it caught an infusion of hair metal earlier this year. Something about the idea of putting together the catchy, party rock stylings of bands like Poison and Cinderella with the fierce brutality of early Carcass and The County Medical Examiners struck a chord with the American public.
Best Band: Twisted Blister
New York City Viking Hardcore (NYHVC)As most Americans know, a Viking gang crime wave hit New York City in early 2014. Alienated young teens joined Viking gangs in droves and pillaged many of the stores and homes that were not guarded by people with assault rifles and high capacity magazines. NYHVC has become a way of expressing their rage at our dysfunctional social order.
Best Band: Freyahazard
Heideggerian Ontological Powerviolence (HOP)
If you are like most Americans, you feel deeply offended that you grew up in a culture that has been thoroughly shaped by Cartesian Dualism. You also probably wonder how you can best disclose being-in-the-world as a whole. And you probably own at least the first four Spazz albums (the ones they did before they sold out). It is not a coincidence that HOP music caught on overnight and became the top selling subgenre in metal in 2014.
Best Band: Being-Toward-Death-Angel
Old School Hebraic Nu-Metal
The most surprising comeback in 2014 was the resurgence of Nu-Metal, only this time instead of “borrowing” style and imagery associated with African American culture these musicians began stealing traditional Jewish themes.
Best Band: Limp Brizkit
Symphonic Free Market Hayekia’N’Roll
In an attempt to connect with younger, hipper Americans, The Heritage Foundation, in conjunction with the Koch Brothers, have spent over 30 billion dollars creating melodic death metal records in order to spread the message of free market intellectual titans like Milton Friedman and the guy who invented the chicken sandwich.
Best Band: Children of Serfdom
Thus Spoke BlaK Dan
Posted by Keith Spillett in BlaK Dan's Theatre of Cruelty on March 11, 2013
(translated from the original grunts and pig noises by Walter Kaufmann)
I.
When BlaK Dan had turned 37, he put down his autographed Burzum album collection and left the comfort of his basement and went into the mountains. He was alone. He waited for the one pure note to emerge from his body, uncontaminated with the essence of those creatures he had survived being around all these years. He did not tire of the solitude, for it is all he had ever wished for. But, at last, a change came over his heart, and one morning he rose with the dawn, stepped before the sun, and spoke to it thus:
“You great star, what would your happiness be if you realized you had to shine on all those who rest below you? If you realized that your light was illuminating the way for others, would you not extinguish yourself in a lake of tears?”
“Behold, I am weary of my own purity. These chumps at the bottom of the mountain, they spend their time waxing poetic about how much weight Snooki lost and what Jessie James Dupree will do for an encore. Even the ones that try to be pure of the world end up owning Metallica’s Reload on vinyl.”
“Bless the cup that wants to overflow and drown those at the bottom of this mountain with the righteous torrent of nothingness. For I am BlaK Dan and I am full of emptiness!”
II.
BlaK Dan descended down the mountain and came upon and old man. The old man was wearing a Dio shirt. Blak Dan sneered.
“It has been a long time since you passed this way, BlaK Dan. The last time I saw you, you were carrying the ashes of the church burned by Samoth. Do you fear that arsonists do not get all the girls?”
“Out of my way, you old fool. I have no time for your false metal jokes or your tales of pits gone by. I have no time for women. Nor men for that matter. I have a world to cleanse of humanity. For I am BlaK Dan, and I have come to philosophize with the blastbeat.”
III.
When BlaK Dan arrived at the next town, he found many people gathered together in the market place; for it had been promised that Black Sabbath would be performing a cover of N’Sync’s “Tearin’ Up My Heart”. And BlaK Dan spoke thus to the people:
“I teach you the Overman! For you people are something that is to be overcome! Ten years, ten long years, I sat in that cave at the top of the mountain pondering how to escape you forever. For even ten years of solitude couldn’t cure me of the memories of watching you simple-minded beasts jump from trend to trend in the name of impressing other people with your metalness. Well, I am here to tell you that I am the most metal. And I know this, because I am the most empty.”
“Behold, I cannot stomach any of you anymore, so I teach you the Overman. This one time I will tell you how to live correctly. Because I am bored. You will probably ignore it, because you are animals. But, at least at the end of your sorry, pitful existences, I can proudly tower over your coffin, telling anyone who will listen “I told you so!” But they will not listen either. Because they too are morons.”
“A polluted stream is metal and you donkeys lap it up as if it were the best thing you’ve ever tasted. One must be completely empty of all moisture to truly be metal. And I know, because I have emptied myself of all that is moist. All that is caring. All that is kind. I spit in the face of all that come to me seeking solace. I turn my back on humanity. I have emptied myself of melody. Of harmony. Of style. Of substance. I am the Overman, because I am Post-Everything!”
IV.
“And you say, ‘But what of God?’ And I say “God is dead! There is only me.” And you say, ‘But what of the joy music brings?’ And I say, ‘But what of the mud a pig wallows in. If the pig is happy, is that mud, in fact, holy?’”
“Once the sin against God was the greatest sin; but God died and now you’re stuck trying to piece together who you are from a bunch of copies of Slayer records. And so you replace your old God with Slayer and perform the same old silly rituals, only this time with the knowledge that you are a unique and clever fellow. You jump up and down and repeat evil words and think you are something special. You are no different than the idiots who came before you. The only difference is you buy more stuff.”
“You ask me what meaning has life. It is a contest that is already over. I got there first. You lose. Sucker. For you are still winding your way through Megadeth’s early discography and I am on Z. I have heard it all. I have done it all. That which I haven’t done isn’t worth doing anyway. I have come to the end of the road. You are a bunch of pimply-faced kids trying out your death stare on old people in the mall. I am the end point of history.”
V.
Then, something happened that made every mouth gape open and every finger point. A cute puppy wandered into the center of the courtyard. The adorable animal jumped up and startled an infant. The infant giggled wildly. People pulled out their phones in order to record what was left of this magic moment and send it to thousands of different people all over the world. Finally, after all the commotion had died down they turned back to BlaK Dan. They all had forgotten what he was saying.
VI.
BlaK Dan left the town muttering under his breath. He found an uncomfortable place to sleep and lay down for what seemed like a thousand hours. At last, however, his eyes opened and gazed into the distance. He rose quickly, like a drunkard whose CD player had begun skipping, and announced to no one in particular that he had discovered a new truth.
“An insight has come to me: ‘People are perishable!’ Sure, everything about them disgusts me. They always want to play you the songs they like and use your mini-refrigerator to store food. They ramble on and on about useless ideas. They make funny noises. They smack their food when the chew. They fall asleep during the best part of Headbanger’s Ball. Will it not be better when they are all dead?”
“But I did not pay attention in Biology class, so I know not how to create a plague to wipe them all away. And I have neither the training nor the patience to seek out members of terrorist cells. And I have not the time nor the funding to buy weapons grade uranium. But I know this one thing. Eventually, they will all die. Sure, I too will die, and that will be a sad day, but I can take comfort in the thought that the rest of them will experience a fate at least as bad as my own, in some cases worse.”
“Some may outlive me, yes, but they too will eventually yield to their own mortality. Everyone on this earth will be dead at some point. Maybe even soon. As I ascend back to the top of the mountain to look down upon this tainted world, I can finally rest in the knowledge that no one ever gets what they want from life and it all ends brutally.”
“Life is a curse of which I hope they are soon cured. But, until then, they can have their dumb little lives. Let them bounce from one dumb crisis to another. Let them anxiously wait by their computers for news on who will be playing drums on the next Doro Pesch record. Let them get worked up over what Dave Mustaine thinks about the customer service at Men’s Warehouse. I am cured. It no longer matters. They are dead to me.”
Satan Suspended Indefinitely For “Soul Bounties”; Cronos Named Interim Devil
Posted by Keith Spillett in General Weirdness on April 19, 2012
On Wednesday, God suspended Satan indefinitely from his role as Devil for promising demons as much as 10,000 dollars for each soul they lured into temptation. Satan’s two head assistants, a gargoyle named Thoth and former American President Ronald Reagan, received slightly lighter suspensions of up to 5000 years, but may be reinstated earlier if they successfully complete anger management classes.
While it was well within Satan’s purview to try to encourage poor behavior on the part of human beings, offering cash incentives for their souls was going a step to far. Yesterday, the Lord released a statement highlighting examples of the many violations and stating that this sort of “encouragement towards lawlessness and immorality is outside of the bounds of what we call fair play.”
When confronted with this statement, Satan didn’t hesitate to fire back. “Wait, so I’m getting scolded about morality by the guy was responsible for the extinction of nearly the entire populations of Sodom and Gomorrah. This is the same God who, on a bet, let me destroy the life of one of his most committed servants, Job. You’ll excuse me; I have to go throw up,” sneered Satan as he spat upon the ground.
In Satan’s absence, Venom frontman Cronos has been named Interim Dark Lord until Satan’s reinstatement. Cronos is a veteran of the dark arts having served in Satan’s Army since 1981. Cronos even had brief experience running Hell back in 1986 when Satan broke five of his legs in a terrible water skiing accident.
Cronos has many exciting new plans he has considered for Hell including an open mic night, the addition of all-you-can sin brothels and building a stadium in an attempt to lure the Buffalo Bills to Hell, giving the Underworld its first pro sports team since the 1976 Oakland Raiders.
Experts believe that Cronos is a good fit for the position and could bring untold glory to Hell. However, many fans were disappointed when their first choice, former Giants and Jets coach Bill Parcells, turned the job down. While Parcells was a flashier name, those around the game respect Cronos for his undying commitment to poisoning the human race with heavy metal and believe that he will be the perfect choice to get Hell back on track.
Dissecting CARCASS’ “Heartwork” – Fifth Incision…Embodiment
Posted by Keith Spillett in Notes on Carcass Heartwork on September 30, 2011
This is the fifth in a series of articles analyzing the lyrics from the 1993 Carcass album “Heartwork”.
Embodiment
I bow down your precious icon, deity of self-suppression
This effigy of flesh, corporeal christi, nailed
In submission to this false idol, seeking deliverance
From this spiritual hierarchy, downward spiraling, a corrupt throne
Of repression and guilt
Our will be done
Thy kingdom burn
On my knees, before this tormented flesh, in irreverence
In communion with this parasitic host of virtuous divinity
This imperious creed bears testament to the failures of our morality
Righteous durance is our cross we bear in stations
In stations of the lost
Our will be done
Thy kingdom burn – thy kingdom burn
Our will be done
From your knees arise
By your own hand, your god you scribe
The earth shall inherit the meek
Your god is dead
Bound down, in God we’re trussed, foul stature
Icons embodied in flesh, we nail
In servitude to deities fashioned in our self image
Shadows of eternal strife cast by those who serve
Serve a crown of pawns
If up until this point you weren’t sure how the band Carcass feels about religion, Embodiment states it completely and in no uncertain terms. The song is an outright renunciation of organized religion, Christianity in particular. The lyrics bubble with hatred and scorn for the self-annihilating principles that they believe mark the Christian outlook. I don’t share the disdain that the band feels for Christianity, but the force of the language used in their argument is highly compelling.
The song’s central argument is that Christianity is an advanced form of slavery. They make the case by dismissing the existence of any fathomable God and assuming that the goals of religion are to allow those who are in power to continue an unfettered hegemony over the practice of free will. Where some people see peace and comfort, Carcass perceives control and subjugation. Certainly, some of their argument is legitimate. There are plenty of historical examples of the misuse of religion to advance the selfish ends of a tyrannical elite. However, the song fails to address much of the comfort and solace that it has brought people for over 2000 years. Further, it would be facile minded to simply assume that the self-abnegation at the core of Christian thought is completely a bad thing. The giving up of one’s desires to benefit the community is on many occasions, inside or outside of a religious context, beneficial towards the human race as a whole.
In spite of the problems the argument presents, the language with which the case is made is striking. The core belief in the song is contained in the beautifully efficient and devastating pun “In God we’re trussed”. By taking an expression found on American money and perverting its message, Carcass is able to make several critical points. First, the use of a religious phrase in an economic context effectively links the agenda of today’s Christianity with the pursuit of financial gain. Then, they take the phrase and change trust (an act of faith) into trussed (to be tightly bound or in this case completely controlled). Essentially, they argue here that while you may choose to subvert your needs for the Church it will not extend you the same courtesy and, worse, it will take your belief and use it to hoodwink you into giving up your possessions and your liberty. In their eyes, it is the greatest hustle in human history.
What is truly lost for believers is contained in the heart-wrenching expression “the earth shall inherit the meek.” The original phrase “the meek shall inherit the earth” is an appeal to the Job-like masses that give so tirelessly but ask for little in return. They suffer in silence, but at the end of the day, they will be rewarded…or so the story goes. The good and humble people will come to control the earth and the wicked will be cast from it. The subversion of this expression contains allows for a very troubling message to be presented. If you suffer in silence and do the right thing your reward will be the grave. Death awaits us all and those who are pious and righteous are rewarded with the same eternal darkness that await those who pillage the world blind. There are no rewards in this life or any other for those who follow the words contained in the Bible. The meek will be buried right alongside those who engage in a Dionysian life of personal excess and unabated greed. The ground cannot tell the two apart.
If this argument is legitimate, it presents us with chilling questions about how we should live our lives that goes beyond religion. If there are truly no consequences for our actions, why not do whatever we want? Those with the most material, at the end of the day, are those who have benefitted most from a purely material world. If all that is promised to us for a good life is an eventual death, what is the motivation in living a justly?
I believe that the truth or untruth of God’s existence need not bear on whether someone acts morally. If every word of the Bible is true and God’s existence is exactly as portrayed in Christianity, we should act with as much kindness, patience and love to those around us as we are capable. If every word of the Bible is false and Christianity is an unholy scam perpetrated by on the masses by ruthless power mongers, we should act with as much kindness, patience and love to those around us as we are capable. The reward of living a just life is simply getting to live a just life. That’s all. The earth may inherit the meek, but at least the meek can lessen the suffering of those around them. Nothing else is promised and nothing else is certain. TS Eliot eloquently summarizes this principle in his poem “Choruses From The Rock”…..
All men are ready to invest their money
But most expect dividends
I say to you: Make perfect your will.
I say: take no thought of the harvest,
But only of proper sowing
It is our station to care for one another to the best of our abilities regardless what the truth of the universe is. To love without condition is the greatest gift we could bestow on our world no matter what the terms of our existence are. Any philosophy that brings us closer to that ability, be it religious or atheistic, is worthy of our respect and consideration.
Gods and Ends
Posted by Keith Spillett in General Weirdness, Pointyheaded Highbrow Stuff on September 4, 2011
Greek Mythology has always been a source of great fascination to me. The Ancient Greeks had an uncanny way of explaining the random, capricious nature of life through their deities. The gods were wild and erratic. They could hand you a check for a million dollars one minute and throw you in a pit with a thousand rattlesnakes the next. Imagine the entire Old Testament was The Book of Job and you have a decent sense of how things worked for The Greeks.
The gods seemed to be a great way to explain anything and everything. At times, it can seem as if there were more gods then Greeks. Often, scholars spend their time focusing on the better-known gods like Zeus, Poseidon or Athena. However, there are many fascinating stories of gods that were widely worshiped in their day, but have disappeared into the great dustbin of history. Here are some great examples:
Arteriosclorities-The God of Deep Fried Foods
Beyond contributing democracy and many other key philosophical insights to our world, The Greeks are also the first society to deep-fry their foods. From yak to Snickers bars (a delicacy first created by Aristotle), the Greeks would throw nearly anything into a bubbling cauldron of oil. It is no wonder that the Greeks are believed to be the progenitors of Western medicine. Most Greeks weighed upwards of 300 pounds and were barely able to run. This fact tends to throw their achievements during the Olympic games into a whole different light.
Supposedly, Arteriosclorities was one of Zeus’ many sons from an affair with Eris, the goddess of strife and discord. In order to hide this affair from his wife Hera after the child was born, Zeus placed Arteriosclorities into the stomach of Dionysus while he was sleeping off a wild night of overeating and general debauchery. Dionysus awoke with a terrible feeling of discomfort and collapsed. Zeus, not meaning to have harmed Dionysus, sent Indigestius, the Greek god of stomach acid and ulcers, into his stomach to destroy Arteriosclorities. The two had a great battle, which was won by Indigestius. Dionysus finally awoke with terrible stomach pains that could only be allayed by eating massive amounts of antacids.
McKuenius-The God of Bad Poetry and Greeting Cards
The Greeks are known for creating some of the most poignant and moving poetry in human history. But, for every Homer, there were 1,000 less talented hacks trying to write their own Iliad. Many of these no talent writers ended up working for the Hallmark Corporation, which was founded in 654 B.C., with the mission of sending sappy, dull poetry to people on important days of their lives. Their patron saint is the god McKuenius.
McKuenius was known for writing terribly boring, pointless poetry and asking Hermes to deliver it. Hermes, the busy messenger god, was forced to deliver idiotic compositions like “Roses are Red, Violets are Blue, You are a Goddess and Athena is too” to Aphrodite or “Poseidon likes water, Demeter is his sister, She gave birth to his daughter,” to the god of the sea. After growing tired of having to read this drivel, Hermes begged Zeus to punish McKuenius in order to make him stop writing. First, Zeus sentenced him to one hundred years of writing dirty limericks on bathroom stalls. However, Zeus quickly discovered that he was enjoying his job. Zeus realized he was a lost cause and sent him to pits of Tartarus and made him write a detailed description of Sisyphus rolling a rock up the hill for eternity. He is still there today, happily describing suffering and misery in a pithy, gleeful, and highly moronic way.
Aggasius-The God Of Male Pattern Baldness
The gods seemed to all have some sort of fatal flaw. Be it rage, greed, avarice or just plain old insanity, they all seemed to have something locked into their character that made them both all-powerful and amazingly vulnerable. One of the earliest examples of this is Aggasius, the god of male pattern baldness. Aggusius was one of the original Titan gods who were overthrown by Zeus and The Olympian gods at 4:22 PM on February 12th 3212 B.C. Aggasius was capable of creating tornadoes, causing earthquakes and smiting entire nations with a wave of his staff. However, he was unable to grow hair on the top of his head. The tragic irony of Agassius was that he could grow massive amounts on his back, his ears and even on his shoulders like Sonny Corleone in the first Godfather film. He tried several potions created by Greek pharmaceutical manufacturers, a terribly made hairpiece created from the beard of Hyperion, and even tried to rubbing pomegranate seeds on his head three times a day, nothing seemed to work. In spite of his great power, the other gods laughed at “The Bald One” whenever his back was turned. Eventually, he grew tired of the mockery, quit being a god and moved to a suburb of Stillwater, Oklahoma, where he still lives today working as a successful middle manager at a meat packing company.
Even A Blind Watchmaker Can Find A Nut
Posted by Keith Spillett in Existential Rambings, Pointyheaded Highbrow Stuff on May 24, 2011
Vladimir: So….you take a watch and you put it in a bag….
Estragon: What type of bag?
Vladimir: It doesn’t matter.
Estragon: Well, what type of watch is it?
Vladimir: Again…not important. You put the watch in a bag. Now, you take a hammer and you smash it.
Estragon: Wait…What?
Vladimir: Just see if you can follow me here. You smash the watch into a hundred pieces….
Estragon: Is it a digital watch or a nice one?
Vladimir: It doesn’t matter….You take the watch and you smash it into….
Estragon: Well, why are you smashing the watch?
Vladimir: Okay, that’s really not important! The important thing is…
Estragon: What kind of lunatic would break a perfectly good watch?
Vladimir: It’s a metaphor. Nobody is really breaking a watch with a hammer. The idea is to prove a point.
Estragon: But how can you prove a point using an example that is completely unrealistic.
Vladimir: I don’t know. It’s not important! Just listen.
Estragon: Well, if it is a digital watch with one of those plastic bands it’s not going to break with a hammer
Vladimir: Fine. It’s a Rolex. A really nice gold Rolex.
Estragon: A Rolex is really expensive. Why would you want to break an expensive watch? And I don’t know if a hammer will break a Rolex into a hundred pieces.
Vladimir: Fine. It is an inexpensive magical watch that magically will break into a hundred pieces. Can I get back to my point?
Estragon: Sure.
Vladimir: Okay, so you break the watch. You shake it up in the bag?
Estragon: Uh-huh.
Vladimir: Does it re-form into the same watch?
Estragon: Well, of course not!
Vladimir: SEE!!!!!
Estragon: See what? I’m not sure I follow.
Vladimir: Evolution is impossible.
Estragon: Wait…What?!?!?
Vladimir: Something has to be there to assemble the watch if it’s going to come back together, right?
Estragon: I guess.
Vladimir: And the watch has been reassembled into a perfect whole, right?
Estragon: That is what you said.
Vladimir: Well, then there has to be a watchmaker who has a plan, right?
Estragon: Uhmmm. Okay. So, who is the watchmaker?
Vladimir: GOD!
Estragon: Wait….WHAT?!?!?!
Vladimir: God is the watchmaker! Otherwise the watch would still be in pieces.
Estragon: Wait…so God reassembled the watch?
Vladimir: YES!
Estragon: Why?
Vladimir: What do you mean why? He’s God. He doesn’t need a good reason.
Estragon: So, God just goes around putting broken watches together? We’re not sure why. That’s just what he does.
Vladimir: Exactly. He loves us. Maybe he wants us to have a nice watch. Maybe he wants us to be happy. That’s for Him to know.
Estragon: If he wanted us to be happy, why didn’t he just stop us from breaking the watch in the first place?
Vladimir: Free will!
Estragon: So, wait, he loves us so much he is willing to fix the watch, but he won’t stop us from breaking it?
Vladimir: Exactly!
Estragon: That’s not a very efficient system.
Vladimir: Well, He doesn’t have to be efficient. He’s God. He doesn’t have to explain anything.
Estragon: Well, if he’s going to go around smashing watches, I think he owes somebody an explanation. That’s pretty rude. If he smashed my watch I’d be really angry!
Vladimir: Okay…forget the watch. We’ll use another example. Pick something.
Estragon: A piece of ham
Vladimir: So, you put a piece of ham in a bag…
Estragon: Ham….in a bag?
Vladimir: Yes! And you smash it into a million pieces.
Estragon: Uh-huh
Vladimir: It still tastes like ham and smells like ham and looks like ham. RIGHT?!?!?
Estragon: Yes…I think.
Vladimir: So there has to be some kind of ham designer, right?
Estragon: Yes…well….maybe…I guess….
Vladimir: Evolution couldn’t have designed ham.
Estragon: Wait…why not?
Vladimir: Because it is perfect.
Estragon: What is perfect?
Vladimir: Ham! Ham is perfect!
Estragon: Compared to what?
Vladimir: To a universe without ham.
Estragon: How can you tell?
Vladimir: God wouldn’t have created it if it weren’t perfect. Ham is in our universe. Therefore, ham is perfect.
Estragon: Okay, now I’m really confused. If God is perfect and created a world that is the most perfect possible world for us, why does he create people who smash ham and watches in bags?
Vladimir: To test us.
Estragon: Why?
Vladimir: To see how much we love him.
Estragon: Oh…so we show him we love him by not smashing things in bags?
Vladimir: Yes!
Estragon: I see. So that’s the point of the whole thing!
Vladimir: YES! That’s the point. We have the choice whether to smash ham or watches or even possums in bags. If we choose not to, we do it because we love God. And if we do that we will be rewarded.
Estragon: With a nice watch?
Vladimir: Maybe with a watch. Maybe with eternal happiness. We’re not exactly sure. We just know that the reward is going to be REALLY good.
Estragon: And if we smash things in bags?
Vladimir: Then bad things happen to us. REALLY bad things. Things like sickness or eternal suffering or boils on our face.
Estragon: Boils on our face?!?!?!
Vladimir: It won’t be a problem for you if you just do what you are supposed to.
Estragon: So these are the rules?
Vladimir: Yes.
Estragon: And if I follow them, I’ll be…………happy???
Vladimir: Unless God has another plan for you. But eventually you’ll be happy. At some point.
Estragon: Will I get a watch?
Vladimir: If that is what you desire and that is God’s plan and you follow the rules then, yes, you will get a watch.
(At this exact moment, a giant meteor hits the earth obliterating smashing it into a million pieces. The entire human race, including Estragon and Vladimir, are destroyed in a firey, horrible instant without warning)
The Evangelical Church of Jordan
Posted by Keith Spillett in Blithering Sports Fan Prattle, General Weirdness on May 18, 2011
Jordan Ascends
The Year is 2223. Reverend Scott E. Pippen the 29th stands in front of his congregation of 24,000 with his arms raised high in the air. He is a tall man, about 6 feet 8. He is wearing a gown with the number 23 embroidered on the front in gold. He is up on a stage with a golden basketball hoop mounted behind him. A hush falls over the capacity crowd.
“Today, I’d like to talk to you about greatness. Many religions have valued different things over the years. Some of the religions praised self-restraint, while others loved commitment and dedication. These qualities can be very good things, but their followers seemed to miss the bigger point. Trying really hard is not enough. In order to truly be worthy of God’s love you must win!”
“AMEN!!!!” screams a parishioner.
“The people of olden times used to worship martyrs! Do you believe it? They would cast their lot with people who tried really hard….but lost! Those martyrs were great men, but they couldn’t figure out how to triumph over evil. Sure, they would say that some of their martyrs rose from the dead, but many people had trouble believing that part. There wasn’t enough proof. Maybe they were successful, but they weren’t able to pull it off on the big stage! I mean, most messiahs wouldn’t make it in the NBA as a 12th man for the New Jersey Nets. For years, we could only choose between this losing messiah, that losing messiah or sometimes a messiah that hadn’t even shown up yet! Can you believe it people?”
“NO!!!!!” shouted the crowd wildly.
“Thankfully, on February 17th, 1963, that holiest of days, Michael Jordan was born in a barn in Brooklyn, New York. As a child, Jordan was a good player, but certainly not the messiah we know him as today. Everyone by now has heard the story of how he was cut from his High School basketball team. This was the first in a series of setbacks for His Airness, but each time he was given an obstacle, he learned how to climb over it and most importantly HOW…..TO…….WIN!!!!!!”
The crowd bursts into thunderous applause.
“When Georgetown tried to slow him down in the 1982 NCAA Final…HE WON! When the Pistons and Celtics stopped him early in his career he came back and….HE WON!!!! When the Knicks attacked and beat him game after game he rose up and….HE WON!!!!!! When Jordan retired for the third time, after his sixth NBA title everyone thought that was finished. Then, as a 60 year old man, Jordan returned to the NBA and led the Chicago Bulls to four more titles. Age tried to beat him down but…..HE WON!!!!!”
“JUST DO IT!!!!” screams the crowd.
“Those old-fashioned religions used to talk about an afterlife. They were preaching the gospel of weakness. Today, we know that the dead are just quitters! When Jordan turned 100 he proclaimed that he would never die. He went up to his basketball court built on the side of the greatest mountaintop and that is where he is still today. No one has talked to him in years, but he has promised that one day he will not only return to us, but return to the NBA. One day, when you go to your weekend sports temple to show your commitment to God and your home team he will emerge from the tunnel and HE…..WILL……PLAY………….AGAIN!!!!!!!!”
“YES!!!!!” “JUST DO IT!!!!!!” “AMEN!!!!!!”
“Those old fashioned religions told you that God loved everyone. Jordan taught us that they were wrong! The truth is that GOD LOVES A WINNER! You prove your devotion to him not by being beaten down by the opponent but though VICTORY! God has no time for losers. He will not give you a trophy just for competing. He has no time for lesser men. He is not going to hold your hand and tell you it is okay to fail. God values results! The simple truth is that God Hates Losers!!!!”
“PREACH IT!!!!” JUST DO IT!!!!”
“Jordan came to save us all from the pain and humiliation of losing. Whenever there is someone buying a pair of His Sneakers….HE’LL BE THERE! Whenever there is a team the overcomes the evil of losing….HE’LL BE THERE! And when we buy His shoes and praise His name and WHEN WE WIN……….HE’LL………BE……….THERE…..……TOOOOOO!”
The crowd erupts into a screaming, howling frenzy.
“And now I present to you the top ranked choir in the entire world….The beautiful and talented Jordan-Airs!!!!!!”
The choir begins to sing and basketball players in different throwback Jordan uniforms dunk golden basketballs into the hoop above the stage…
“To The Temple of Jordan Our Savior Went One Day,
And We Read That Phil The Baptist Met Him There,
And When Jordan Scored 60 in the Finals Versus Philly
The Mighty Power of God Filled The Air.
I’m On My Way
To The Temple of Jordan
Were Going To Win
At The Temple of Jordan
And Victory Will Cleanse My Soul”
Dumb Metal Rumors and The People Who Love Them
Posted by Keith Spillett in Articles I Probably Shouldn't Have Bothered Writing on April 17, 2011
Metalheads, as a lot, tend to be some the most cynical people on the planet, but we are often willing to believe some amazingly suspect information. Get a roomful of bangers together and most of them will agree that the government, in league with a group of rancorous aliens who crashed in New Mexico, are conspiring to enslave the human race and force us to listen to Black Eyed Peas records until our ears bleed. What can be said of a group that seems to have a universal distrust Christianity but believe strongly in the existence of Satan? We tend to be suspicious of any sort of authority structure, but have complete faith in strangers who happen to arrange a series of musical notes in a way that makes us want to run into each other screaming “KILL!!!!”. In short, we are a group that is susceptible to getting caught up in some bizarre rumors.
Over the years there have been a some I particularly enjoyed. Here are a few of them…
Paging Dr. Goregrind
The story goes something like this…A bunch of frustrated med students dropped out of college moments away from becoming doctors. They took their wealth of medical training and used it to write a series of revolting metal albums in the late 80s and early 90s. These albums, which featured songs with catchy titles like “Swarming Vulgar Mass of Infected Virulency” and “Cadaveric Incubator of Endoparasites”, must have been penned by people with an acute understanding of human anatomy, the type of understanding that could only be gained by hours of study at a medical college. It’s a great story and it actually makes some sense but it is completely untrue. Carcass are, in fact, brilliant musicians with highly overdeveloped vocabularies and no medical training whatsoever. This didn’t stop a friend of mine, years back, from sending a letter to the band offering to allow them to remove his spleen onstage.
Malevolent Obfuscation
The saga of Phil Fasciana, guitarist from the band Malevolent Creation, and his heroic killing of a “80-pound homeless crackhead” Kwik E Mart robber gripped the metal world back in 2009. Apparently, Phil stumbled in looking to buy some chocolate milk and was shot at by the thief. In a scene that seems right out of a bad Don “The Dragon” Wilson action flick (because it probably was), Phil tackled the bad guy and wrestled his gun away. But this cagey crackhead reached for his hideout piece located, in of all places, his sock. Phil was forced to fire on the guy and kill him. There were more holes in the story than in the USS Bismarck. The poor, desperate homeless guy with enough money for two guns. The lack of a murder weapon, a dead body or a witness. Days afterwards, the police confirmed the story was complete nonsense. This didn’t stop a good number of metalheads, myself in particular, from running wild with this fable.
The Parable of The Cave
Wolves in the Throne Room are just your average Rudolph Steiner reading, eco-anarchist black metal band. Over the years, they have rightfully gained a reputation for being somewhat eclectic. This, however, does not mean they live in a cave. Nearly every description I heard about the band went like this “They sound like ____________________ and they remind me of ______________________ and, get this, they live in a cave.” In fairness, they do look like they live in a cave, but so do 2/3rds of the metalheads under the age of 25. They live on an organic farm. There are clear structural differences between a cave and a farm that I shouldn’t have to explain.
Dead…Again?
Death rumors are a favorite among metalheads. Back in 2005, Type O Negative pulled off the ultimate hoax when they convinced the world that singer Peter Steele had died. This became quite confusing when Steele actually died last year. Was he really dead this time? Would he rise on the second day as some sort of ironic, Easter-themed publicity stunt? The last album was named Dead Again for gosh sakes! And Rasputin was on the cover. That zany Russian died something like 28 times and kept coming back! This had to be some sick joke. Unfortunately, it was not and Steele has not risen…yet.
The 2005 Steele death was the most convincing death rumor I have heard, but far from the first. I’ll never forget spending an embarrassing evening back in 1993 mourning Pantera singer Phil Anselmo’s untimely death. The word was he had dove off of the stage and the crowd had parted, unwilling to take seriously their responsibilities as members of the metal community, allowing Phil to slam into the floor. His neck broke and he was pronounced dead in the pit. The injustice! I remember mournfully looking at the sky and shouting “I would have caught you, Phil! I would have caught you!”
The Tyranny of Tradition 