Merry Jesusmas!!!

What is Jesusmas? Well, in all the holiday hustle and bustle, I think we’ve really lost focus on what Christmas is about. Is it merely about the gift giving and materialism? The friends and family? The decorations and TV specials? Or is it about something more? It’s easy to forget why we began celebrating at this time of year…

Thousands of years ago, pagans celebrated the winter solstice. Jesus came to earth to put a stop to this nonsense, which is why he timed his birth to occur almost exactly on the solar event. Of course we all know how the story goes from there: Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, sheep, a manger, three wise men, gold, frankincense, and myrrh. What you may not have heard about was the orgy that ensued, which was edited out of later versions of the Bible, along with the unicorns.

We often hear it said now that “Jesus is the Reason for the Season,” which I find suspicious due to the fact that there is no mall Jesus. Instead, we have a Mr. Clause. And while technically a “saint,” he is hardly a substitute for the Son of God. I have often thought that without the red suit and had, Santa Clause would look remarkably like a Renaissance-era God. This has led me to theorize that Santa Clause is actually God in disguise. Or vice versa. I have also thought that with mutton chops and a jumpsuit, Jesus would look like a Vegas-era Elvis. What does this mean? I’ll leave that for you, the reader, to decide.

Christmas means literally “More Christ,” and I think we should take time to remember what Jesusmas is really about. That’s why instead of giving gifts for the holiday season, I like to celebrate by getting virgins pregnant. And I encourage everyone in here to do the same. Merry Jesusmas!

Script Idea

I have a new movie idea that would turn the Friday series (starring Ice Cube) into a quadrilogy. Instead of calling the next Friday movie something along the lines of The Last Friday, or Friday the 13th—where Ice Cube and Jason Voorhees finally battle it out (though that would be totally badass!), the movie would instead be called Black Friday.

The plot would revolve around Ice Cube’s character Craig and his zany ensemble of friends going to the mall early in the morning looking for killer deals on a flat panel television and then presumably smoking pot and/or reinforcing negative race-related stereotypes, for comedic effect. Anyone looking to collaborate on this ambitious endeavor is encouraged to contact me!

The First Thanksgiving

It's hard to believe that Thanksgiving has only been around for about 387 years. Before that people just sat around and complained about how miserable their lives were because of (you fill in the blank: no air conditioning, no indoor plumbing, how many goddamn Indians there were running around, etc).

In 1621, the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, an amazing coincidence to be sure, being as they had just left Plymouth. In order to uphold the deal with the devil they had made ensuring safe passage across the Atlantic Ocean, the Pilgrims built an altar and sacrificed a turkey to the Dark Lord Beelzebub. Why a turkey? Well, the Pilgrims believed that the turkey was a sacred bird.

You see, the Pilgrims were apostates who left the Holy Anglican Church because they didn't believe that the literal body of Christ was present in the Eucharist. They believed that a real body and real blood were meant to be used, and not the crackers and wine found in so many church services. This heretical belief drove them to search for a new land in which they could indulge their blood lust, which brings us back to the Turkey.

You might ask "Why did they use the blood of a Turkey and not a real person?" The answer is at once both terrifying and slightly humorous. Through some sort of dark magic, the Pilgrims must have known in advance that the turkey was to become Benjamin Franklin's vote for national bird, and in effort to alter the course of history, attempted to kill as many of the non-flighted fowls as they could.

Realizing that annual, or even bi-monthly sacrifices to the Evil One would have little effect on the turkey population, they devised a holiday, whereby under the guise of "giving thanks" one would eat the soul of a turkey (turkey souls are largely believed to reside in the giblet). And so the tradition remains today, that on Thanksgiving, as many turkeys are to be killed and eaten as possible. The bitter irony in all of this is that the Bald Eagle now enjoys the status of both national bird and endangered species.

So this Thanksgiving, as the family gathers around the dinner table, as the mashed potatoes are passed, and as the elders carve up "the bird," remember the real reason for this holiday- the slaughter and attempted genocide of turkeys. And don't forget to call dibs on the giblet!

Apocalypse Now Review

When Apocalypse Now was released in 1979, it set the benchmark for what all Vietnam War era films would hope to aspire to. Unfortunately, films such as Casualties of War would mistake this benchmark for a tree after a long night of drinking and piss all over it. When you have Marty McFly and Jeff Spicoli together in a movie about Vietnam, it had better be a comedy...or at least a buddy cop movie.

For the uninitiated, Apocalypse Now was originally based on the Joseph Conrad novel Heart of Darkness, and set in the African Congo. It was later re-made into a musical, then into a short lived Disney on Ice show. Martin Scorscese updated the film to make it socially relevant, set it in Vietnam rather than the African Congo, and started out the movie with a close up of green-beret-gone-apeshit Martin Sheen’s ass-crack—and it doesn’t let up from there. This was a brave move on Scorscese’s part, due to the immense popularity of the war (and Martin Sheen’s ass-crack), and how unfavorable it was looked upon to question the rationale behind both of them. The movie was later re-made for television, set in the middle of the Korean War conflict, and featured wisecracking Alan Alda.

Sheen’s mission is simple: go up the Vietcong river into Cambodia and dispatch of Colonel Kurtz "with extreme prejudice." Sheen somehow interprets this order as "saunter up the river taking your sweet-ass time and fall in love with the guy we want you to kill" then proceeds to spend the better part of the next two hours hanging out on a boat, stopping occasionally to shoot peasants and smoke pot. When he finally reaches Kurtz (an old, bald, sweaty Marlon Brando) he finds he cannot bring himself to kill, and instead promptly gets thrown into a prison cell.

With the homoerotic tension between Sheen and Brando reaching a boiling point, Sheen somehow sweet-talks his way out, and hacks Kurtz to into bite-size pieces with a machete. The pieces, however, don’t stay apart long. The pull themselves back together and form Mecha-Kurtz! Luckily, Sheen is able to knock him into a vat of molten steel, which it turns out is the only way to defeat Mecha-Kurtz.

I give this movie a 38AAA.

March of the Penguins Review

I recently watched March of the Penguins and have to say it's probably the second best penguin movie I've ever seen. You might assume that Happy Feet is the first, but you'd be wrong.

I heard somewhere that it's not real penguins they use, but midgets dressed up like penguins. Either way, it doesn't really ruin the experience for me.

For those of you who have not seen the movie, let me summarize: The penguins are upset about how global warming is affecting their environment, and decide to organize a political march in protest, to send a message to the politicians "Stop killing our planet!" Or something like that. Morgan Freeman narrates (he's the black guy who does the voice of Darth Vader) and he's wonderful. The penguins all have little baby penguins of their own, and then they go off and leave them to freeze to death. It's really a miracle that there are any penguins left in the world at all, what with their parenting skills and global warming and all.

It's a fun little movie, filled with all sorts of interesting facts about what penguins eat (snow), what they do for fun (slide on their tummies), and how they identify their mates (infrared).

Watching this film definitely taught me some things about penguins. First, I don't think I would want one as a pet. They just kind of waddle around and would get in the way alot. Second, penguins are actually mammals (like the crocodile) and may actually be descended from dinosaurs, who evolved into birds. Third, if you did have one as a pet, they'd probably always be in your swimming pool when you wanted to get in it, and the water would be all penguiny.

I highly recommend this film if you want to learn more about penguins or just want to hear Morgan Freeman's voice as you drift off to sleep. I give it a 26.

The Rise of the Kettlebells

I've noticed a recent trend in fitness lately, which is the return of the kettlebell. The kettlebell is a 1920's strongman-era weight training device. Essentially, it's a cannon ball with a handle on it. While I'm sure it was a revolutionary idea at the time (attaching handles to things), I'm a bit puzzled by the revival of this seemingly anachronistic apparatus for one main reason: the existence of the dumbbell.

The dumbbell not only offers superior handling along with increased flexibility in the number of ways it can be used, they are also widely available and relatively inexpensive when compared to a kettlebell. Literally every single exercise you can do with a kettlebell, you can do with a dumbbell. Did anyone stop to think about why we quit using kettlebells in the first place? Maybe it's because not everyone looks good with a handle-bar mustache and a leopard print singlet. Fitness trends will always come and go, and while my Suzanne Somers Thighmaster still sees a fair bit of action, my Patrick Duffy Chinfirmer is still stuffed away in the closet next to the lawn darts and Missionary Conquest: The Board Game.

My point being: next time a personal trainer asks you if you're interested in trying out some "revolutionary piece of fitness equipment" just kick him (0r her) in the kettleballs.