messiestobjects

The Biggest, Awesomest Colon EVER!

I was going through some old photos and junk that I had scanned, and I found this clipping which Scott had found in the military newspaper, The Stars & Stripes, when we were in Iraq. It's horribly funny in so many wrong ways that I wanted to share it with the world. I mean, look at the expression on that kid's face. WOW! He seems to be thinking. This colon is the shit! And what's that stuff on the sides of the colon wall? Too much detail perhaps? And who thought this was a good picture to print? How will that kid ever live a normal life? Ketchikan is small, and I'm sure his friends will never let him forget this. "Hey Ryan, remember that time you crawled through a giant asshole, thought it was awesome, and then had your picture in the paper?" Who built the COLOSSAL colon in the first place? Who thought it was a good idea to make an ass cavity into a fun thing for kids to crawl through? I mean, I'm all for education, and the more that people understand their bodies and health and all that, the better. But I mean come on, this borders on the depraved. And then they printed it on the front page of the US Military's self-propaganda machine.

Anyway, these are the same questions that ran through my mind when I first saw it, and it's nice to know that you can bury something like this in a drawer, find it years later, and be knocked on your ass by it all over again.

HAPPY OBAMA DAY! GOOD RIDDANCE BUSHTARD! Looks Like We Made It, Kids.

The Power Of Chick Compels You

Ever wonder what really happened to the dinosaurs? Chick knows! Click on the comic to read more!

Chick is now online, and all of his wonderful messages in cartoon can be perused at your leisure! Chick tracts were around when I was really young, and I remember one in particular that scared the living crap out of me. Something about an MC 500 foot Jesus coming to rip my guts out. I love how evil all non-Christians are in Chick's fabulous brain.

Incest and murder are my things? Comedy gold. But there are many many other classics, including one about how to convert Muslims to Christianity by insulting Allah!

And one of my personal favorites about a rather testy old Evolution teacher. Those bad science professors sure need some calming Christ in their life, don't they?

Have you noticed how all of the main characters, both good and evil, in Chick tracts are white? Well, don't feel left out, people of color. Lest you think Chick might be racist, Chick made a tract for you, too! (I pasted the description onto the tract cover from the main tract listing page)

And not to spoil the ending of Oops! or anything, but I also think it's important to note that Chick gives black people a very important role in his mythos:

There are other tracts made just especially for the blacks too. There's Soul Sisters, (featuring black Adam & Eve and a black Angel! See? Chick's no racist!) Who Loves You?, and Chick even took the time to kindly redraw the Allah Had No Son tract just for them! He retitled it Who is Allah?

And no post about Chick would be complete with out a tract about the totalitarian rule of the costumed anti-Christ during the last days on Earth before Jesus comes to rule the world. Sadly, we don't get to see Jesus in a Batman-like costume come and pummel the joker here, but I guess the implication is enough to get Chick's message across.

A panel from this strip explains away all the contradictions about Christians who are anti-environmentalist, and who cheer on nuclear wars and unrest in Israel:

That's why I'm so excited? Christians are freaking scary sometimes, dude. Oh, keep this one on the down-low for now, but Chick doesn't like Queers much, neither... or maybe he's afraid of them? Hard to tell. Wonder why a straight guy is afraid of a couple of other guys holding hands?

Gulp! Gay Hippies! Or perhaps the implication is that all hippies are Jerry Garcia lookalike commie fags... not sure. All I know is, it's no big deal, it's all a joke to me! Proposition Hate? Nah... Proposition GREAT!

Another one of my favorites is an interesting piece of cartoon art titled Last Rites. It's theme is essentially how wrong Catholics are about God and his rules, and it starts off with, you know, an ordinary everyday non-Christian couple driving a car.

 

They accidentally run over a good Catholic man who dies and goes in front of God for judgment, who then informs the poor Catholic man that he's been doing it wrong and will therefore burn in Hell for all eternity. The Catholic man complains to God and says that he went to church, and did everything the Priests told him he had to do to go to Heaven, that this isn't fair! How was he to know that there was a better way? Well, says God, Chick Tracts would have straightened you out!

Apparently, Chick Tracts are so awesome that now even God is using them to witness to us and to save our souls. Jerry Falwell & Pat Robertson are out, Chick is in. I hope everybody got that memo.

Monday Blues Make An Even Nicer Video Mash

Iraq's inability to destroy our nation a "significant disappointment" for Bush

"This morning's final press conference from President Bush was some real must-see television for anyone who simply must see what denial in action looks like. But our favorite moment came during Bush's response..."

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Get the latest news satire and funny videos at 236.com.

Get the latest news satire and funny videos at 236.com.

Get the latest news satire and funny videos at 236.com.

Sunday Blues Make A Nice Mash

This is the first in a series of my new favorite comic strip. Go here to read all of the Adventures of Confessions of Saint Augustine Bear online. It's done by David Rees, who also does Get Your War On, which is especially hilarious and painful to read. (GoDrex turned me on to GYWO; thanks again for like the hundredth time)

Oh, it's also occasionally animated.

Get the latest news satire and funny videos at 236.com.

Awesome. And now for something completely silly.

 

Ice Storm On The House

Coda, Or Addendum, Or Post-Script, Or, You Know, One Of Those Thing-ummies

And last but not least on my fabulous work-ation from last year, we hit the Petrified Forest, which is another place I'd sort of romanticized since I was very young. It's hard to express the fascination of a young boy who dreams of finding buried treasure and trees that turn to stone, but there it is. I won't say that it was a disappointment, because it certainly wasn't, but it was not how I used to imagine it. Stone trees standing tall in a thick forest with stony leaves... well I didn't really think it was going to be like that by the time I was old enough to visit it on a work-ation, but I was hoping.

So it wasn't like some sort of fantasy crystal forest, but still. Look at that! Looks like wood! But it's not! It's the result of an amazing natural process which reminds me of how computer information copies itself. A tree gets knocked down in a big flood. Gets buried in silt and volcanic ash and silica and all kinds of nasty junk. Over time, the silica it is buried with takes the place of each grain of wood, often becoming colored by certain other oxides that are buried also such as iron and manganese, until there's no wood left, but an extremely faithful copy of each grain, thanks to time and pressure. Time and pressure are all that Andy Dufresne had... Sorry, wrong movie. Anyway, computers obviously don't knock down trees and bury them in volcanic silicate in order to copy information, (although to a more advanced computer geek than I, I'm sure that comparisons could be made) but it's the bit-by-bit copying that is similar in my mind. Sometimes the oxide coloring of petrified wood can be quite dull. Sometimes it's cool and mimics the color of wood in a way as in the above photo. Sometimes it's wicked.

I wanted to take home a chunk in the worst way, but there were signs all over threatening death, disease, mortification, and a chatty lesbian Park Ranger to all who pilfered from the forest. I guess it's a real problem, and I can see why... I think Saint Abstain himself would want to steal this log. (St. Abstain is a mental construct pincushion of mine, don't ask) The other cool thing they had in the Park were a whole bunch of petroglyphs carved by Pueblo Indians back in the day.

 

They don't really require much explanation do they? Some Indians got bored staring at the plains all day, so they charred up some rock and carved some art into them. Something to do, something to look at. I got loads more pictures of Trees that turned into rocks, and graffitti on rocks, over in my Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona gallery. Also, I finally made it through my billions of Grand Canyon photos and put a few up in my Grand Canyon, Arizona gallery, naturally enough. Here's one that really turned out well, I thought. Monks always make pictures more interesting.

Gonna Party Like It's 2009... owcrapmyback

Happy Neu Jahr! So far so good. My friends Steph & Bill, Julie & I went up to Montclair New Jersey last night to see Vivian Girls, The Feelies, & Yo La Tengo. For Indie aficionados, a rather legendary lineup. The Feelies (the band's name is taken from a fictional entertainment device described in Brave New World by Aldous Huxley) in particular kicked mojo derrière. It was somewhat of a revelation to see them live... they broke up in 1992 and promptly became the best legendary rock band you never heard of. They got together for the first time since then this past summer and played a few shows, and last night they sounded like they'd never been apart. They reminded me of old dogs teaching younger puppies how to rock out.

Yo La Tengo is a great band. [From wikipedia: Their name comes from a baseball anecdote.

During the 1962 season, New York Mets center fielder Richie Ashburn and Venezuelan shortstop Elio Chacón found themselves colliding in the outfield. When Ashburn went for a catch, he would scream, "I got it! I got it!" only to run into the 160-pound Chacón, who spoke only Spanish.

Ashburn learned to yell, "¡Yo la tengo! ¡Yo la tengo!" which is "I have it" in Spanish. In a later game, Ashburn happily saw Chacón backing off. He relaxed, positioned himself to catch the ball, and was instead run over by 200-pound (90.7 kilograms) left fielder Frank Thomas, who understood no Spanish and had missed a team meeting that proposed using the words "¡Yo la tengo!" as a way to avoid outfield collisions.

After getting up, Thomas asked Ashburn, "What the heck is a Yellow Tango?"]

Their set last night was a bit disappointing though. I'd seen them live in Munich once on their Summer Sun tour, and they were really awesome; they'd played a cover of Sun Ra's Nuclear war which changed my brain. Last night they stuck to their noisier, less compelling fare. Maybe they didn't want to upstage the Feelies, idols of theirs. They of course all got up on stage together at the end of the show (well after midnight) as a happy 2009 present and did a Velvet Underground cover.

So that was awesome. Things I'm looking forward to in 2009:

1. OBAMA!
2. LOST season 5 (How did they DO that?!)
3. A healthier diet and more excercise. I'm joining a local vegetable co-op.
4. More fun work trips, hopefully.
5. Building an addition on my house.
6. Building a sweat lodge on my property. Or maybe a Bat Cave.
7. ... surprises. Nice ones.
8. Trying to find ways in which the desire for these things doesn't make me an old fuddy duddy.
9. Realizing that saying old fuddy duddy makes me one.
10. Going to more ROCK shows to make me feel young again.
11. Giving up, going home, drinking my Metamucil, and jestingly referring to it as my good 'ol poop glue.