WAR!

Hooah.
Good God, y'all.
What is it good for?

Absolutely anything, really.

All you need is a casus belli and some dudes with nothing better to do.

Now some folks will tell you wars are all fought over ideology or greed. Often both.  At first blush those both sound like great reasons to kill people, but are they really the only good reasons?  I contend that a little investigation will show that there are scads of compelling reasons to slay one another.  All an up-and-coming warlord has to do is pick one and run with it.

I have compiled a chronology of just a few of the many wars in humanity's curriculum vitae.  Some were grand and terrifying flurries of death and destruction, while others were more laid-back affairs.

All of them were fun though.

Part One: Antiquity

Trojan War
Timeline: ca. 1260 BC - 1240 BC
Belligerents: semi-mythical Greek guys vs. semi-mythical not-quite-as-Greek guys
Casus belli: pussy theft

It all started when a bunch of imaginary people living on a mountain somewhere were arguing about this golden apple they had.  The four hottest women on the mountain were all vying for it, as the inscription said it was supposed to go to the best looking one.  Naturally,  the leader of the imaginary people sent the four women down the mountain to engage in what can be considered to be history's first beauty pageant.  Few if any of those involved expected their little contest would end with what can be considered to be history's first good ol' fashioned war.

Aphrodite seemed to grasp how incredibly valuable the golden apple was,
leading historians to conclude that she must have been a Minecraft player.

The judge for the pageant was a horny Trojan fellow named Paris.  He examined the four contestants closely, paying special attention to the talent and swimwear portions of the contest.  After much humming and hawing (and a little back-room politicking) he judged the imaginary woman Aphrodite to be the sexiest, and so awarded her the apple.  Aphrodite, in return, used her magic to put a whammy on yet another woman, this one only semi-imaginary, named Helen.  In spite of her swarthy Greek heritage, Helen was by all accounts a choice piece of ass.  Alas, she was also married; to the King of Sparta no less.  So Paris was pretty jazzed to discover that Aphrodite's spell had worked, and had caused Helen to fall in love with him.  Wasting no time, he gathered up his new paramour and all her shit, and spirited her across the Aegean Sea to his dad's place in Troy.

The Greeks were lucky Trojans were so insanely stupid.

Eventually Helen's husband King Menelaus noticed she was gone.  He was somewhat perturbed.  He and his big brother King Agamemnon possied up with all the super-heroes they could find and sailed to Troy, where they spent ten years laying siege.  In the end, when everyone (real or imaginary) was at the end of their rope, the issue was settled when some crafty Greek carpenters built a giant horse, filled it with soldiers, pushed it to the gates of the city, and ran away.  Then all they had to do was hope the clever Trojans were all either sleeping or already dead.

They were in luck.  After slaughtering the remaining, less-than-clever Trojans and then setting the whole place ablaze, Menelaus finally found Helen.  He was pretty set on stabbing her to death for her betrayal, but before he could stick her she flashed him her tits and he changed his mind.

History has forgotten whether Helen left and climbed Imagination Mountain, or if she went back to Sparta with hubby.

Does it matter though?  All history really needs to remember is how awesome her boobs were.




Peloponnesian War
Timeline: 431 BC - 404 BC
Belligerents: more Greek city-states than anyone can keep straight
Casus belli: Spartans were dicks

Close your eyes.

Actually, you should have kept them open and just imagined they were closed, so you could keep reading.  Sorry, that was my fault.

Okay, so pretend your eyes are closed.  Now take a long, slow, deep breath in through your nose.  Inhale the tastes of the salty air, the smells of the fish market, and the unadulterateable reek of the untreated human excrement.  That's right, we're in ancient Athens.

Although modern Athens smells much the same, there are many notable non-olfactory differences between then and now, not the least of which is that modern Athens is not the jewel of civilization and democracy that it used to be.  Also, Athens is no longer constantly being fucked with by pesky Spartans.  This is largely due to the fact that it has been a while since anyone gave a shit about Athens.

But we are not in the modern, shitty Athens.  The power of your imagination has taken you back, and you are standing in the great city of Athens, in all her glory; the first democratic society, and the up-and-coming power in the land.  It is a beacon of learning, culture, and trade.  Yes, the air is foul with the stench of waste, but the city is so vibrant and magnificent that it is worth every whiff.

It is the golden age of ancient Greece.  The lands and islands are dotted with numerous city-states, each with their own military forces, political allegiances, and smelly human waste problems.   Many of these cities pay tribute to Athens, an arrangement which the average Athenian feels fairly positive about.  But not all of the cities of Greece pay into Athens' coffers...

An average pair of cheerful Spartans after a satisfying
afternoon of doing sit-ups and oiling one another.

For the past couple of hundred years the pre-eminent Hellenic power has been a happy little place called Sparta (or Lacedaemon if you ask Thucydides, Homer, or Herotodus).  Sparta is a jolly, oligarchical city nestled cozily in the southern part of the Peloponnesus.  Spartans are a happy-go-lucky people, who enjoy nothing more than laying around basking in the warm Mediterranean sunshine, drinking wine, eating olives, and having their chests waxed and lubricated.  Sure, ya, occasionally someone gets upset and tosses a baby off a cliff, but mostly Spartans are completely harmless.

That is, unless you don't kneel before their supremacy and regularly pay them a financially crushing tribute.  In that case they will rape you and your family, kill you and your family, and then fuck your corpse and the corpses of your family.

You blink, and you are there, standing among the stern architecture and hard people of Sparta.  It smells...different.  But still terrible.  Wandering the streets of this great city, you hear a lot of murmurings about another city to the north, in Attica.  Athens, it's called, and they think they're better than Spartans just because of some horseshit called 'democracy', whatever that is.  These bastard Athenian dog-fuckers have the audacity to build ships and hire armies and subjugate tributary city-states of their own!  You hear talk of their empire expanding rapidly, and that city after city is bowing to them, even as far away as Ionia across the Aegean sea.  They are amassing enormous wealth, maybe even more than is here in Sparta!  Somebody had better do something!  TO ARMS!

A passing soldier assumes in the commotion that you are a Spartan, and not a time-traveler surfing waves of imagination across the ages.  He bitch-slaps you and hauls you bodily to the nearest barracks, where he chastises you for being out of uniform.  He waxes your chest brusquely, then with a grunt he tosses you a spear, some armor, and some baby oil.  The next thing you know you are training to invade Attica.

Just like the Spartans, many modern land armies have
puzzled over how exactly to go about fighting ships.

Now, there turned out to be a minor problem with the whole "let's invade Attica" plan.  You see, Athens was predominantly a sea power, and Sparta was almost exclusively a power on land.  This meant that, not for a lack of trying, it took some time for everyone to figure out how to fight one another.  We'll skip ahead to...

It's 431 BC.  After never having been able to figure out how to have a proper fight with one another, Sparta and Athens have been living under a strained truce for the past fourteen years.  There are minor skirmishes now and then, but nothing worth getting too excited about.  Then, out of the blue, Thebes (a Spartan ally) attacks Plataea (an Athenian ally).  Now this shit is on.

After a fresh waxing, a tearful goodbye to your young wife and newborn children, and another long march north, you and your Spartan cohorts find yourself back in Attica, fucking shit up.  But no matter how many of them you brutally murder, their wealth and power remain locked safely behind Athens' walls.  Even a fucking plague killing half the city isn't enough!  You are so tired.

It is 428 BC.  You can't seem to snap out of it and come back to the present.  Your thoughts turn away from your old life in the faraway future and into this other world of leather and dust and murderous drudgery.  You hear a rumor that your compatriots in the Spartan navy have staged a raid on the island of Lesbos.  You think to yourself: "Jesus, a pair of lesbians would really hit the spot about now."

The years go by.  The memory of your former life has faded almost entirely into one of mud and blood and ashes.  You find you can't sleep at night.  You just shake.  Sometimes you hum the song that is always dancing in the back of your mind.  You know it is a song about something called Quantum Leap, but you no longer remember what that is.

This period saw the first Greek 'anti-war' tragedies in theater
history, most notably the masterpiece Full Bronze Breastplate.

Every time you close your eyes you can see only the faces of your children, far away in Sparta.  Or at least you think they're your children.  You can't even remember anymore.  Every day you wake to slaughter and rape, but all you actually want is to hug them one more time.

Then it's a long march back to the Peloponnese, where the Athenians have launched their own offensive.  Fuckers.  You wish you could kill them all in one stroke and go home.  Instead more years grind slowly by.  In the end, after all the butchering, ten years have passed, and you and your fellow Spartans have finally managed to force the Athenians to accept a truce.  A decade of marching and pillaging and bleeding, and all you managed to get was a lousy stalemate?  Weak.

But at least you get to go home...

It is 415 BC, and you are back in Sparta.  You have enjoyed six years of the peaceful life.  Instead of decay and hunger, there is now growth and renewal.  The sewer smell of this place stopped registering long ago.  The horrors of your youth are not forgotten, but every day you wake feeling refreshed, and grateful that those days are behind you.  Your loving wife, your strong, noble son, and your beautiful, chaste daughter have even managed to remind you how to smile.  Some mornings, before they wake, you stand on the hill above your slumbering house and the world glows at you, saying: "this is your home".

But not this morning.  This morning your peace is shattered by a draft letter.  Athens has launched a massive assault on Sicily, and you are once again called to duty.

Rapidly increasing numbers of assholes
made war inevitable.

You wax your chest, and oil it one final time.  You draw your blade, gaze into the blurred reflection of your face in the polished bronze, and then slowly drag its edge across your jugular.  As the heat of your insides slides down your chest and onto the floor, your final thought is of your children, smiling at you.

You will never know it, but eventually the Athenians were driven back.  Their Sicilian expedition was utterly destroyed as it attempted to retreat.  A new Spartan general rose to power, named Lysander.  He cunningly attacked the Hellespont, the source of Athens' grain, luring the remainder of the Athenian navy into a deathtrap.  At the battle of Aegospotami in 405, Lysander destroyed 168 ships, all but 6 ships of the Athenian fleet.  After a year of starvation, Athens finally surrendered in 404 BC.

Your son fought at Aegospotami, alongside Lysander.  You would have been very proud of him.  He stood amongst the bravest of Spartan heroes that day.

He never stopped hating you for the shame of your cowardly end.




Wars of Alexander the Great
Timeline: 335 BC - 323 BC
Belligerents: Greece vs. pretty much everyone else
Casus belli: not enough places named Alexandria

I won't bore you with too many details, as we [should] have all studied this fellow in school, but Alex really does deserve a mention in this list, as he is arguably history's best example of a guy who started wars not for wealth or lands, but for the intangible glory of it all.

Alexander was born into power, what with his father being the King of Macedonia, in July of 356 BC.  He wanted for nothing.  He lived in luxury, and had the best schooling in war, art, and philosophy that drachmas could buy.  I'm not speaking hyperbolically either.  The kid had fucking Aristotle as his private tutor for much of his youth.  No public schools for the prince of Macedon!  He was groomed from birth to be a great warrior, tactician, and leader, and he saw global conquest as his birthright and destiny.  Not at all unhinged.

In 336 BC Philip II, Alexander's father, was assassinated and Alexander found himself suddenly being Alexander III, King of Mecedonia.  He liked the ring that had to it, and he suspected he might also like the ring of King of Persia and Pharaoh of Egypt just as much.  He knew there was only one way to be sure.

Philip passed Alexander his power and wealth,
but also a hideous facial deformity.

Conveniently for Alex, before being killed Philip had united all of Greece.  Together, Philip and Alexander had marched Macedon's armies south, conquering as they went.  Thermopylae, Thebes, and Athens all bowed.  They entered the Peloponnesus unopposed, and city after city willingly joined Philip's new Hellenic Alliance.  Well, except for Sparta, who were far too grouchy to be interested.  Philip, knowing Spartans tended to be royal ass-pains, chose to shrug it off.  He imposed an embargo on all hair removal products and left them to sit grumpily inside their walls.  They went to Corinth, where Philip formally announced his intention to lead his new Greek coalition in a fresh effort to smite the Persian Empire, every Greek's least favorite empire.  Then he went back to Macedon to party for a while and get murdered, although the murder bit came as a surprise to him.

So you see, when Philip died he passed Alexander more than a title and crown.  He also handed over a huge amount of wealth, a solid plan for the invasion of Persia, and the largest and best trained Hellenic military force ever assembled.  Pretty handy, considering conquering Persia was exactly what Alex was hankering for.  All he had to do was assassinate a few relatives to secure his claim to power and then slaughter a few loads of Balkan folks to secure his northern border.  Then he could get on with the really fun stuff.

To make a long story short, for the next eight years Alexander fought, fucked, and drank his way all over creation, conquering absolutely everything.  The vast Persian Empire, Egypt, and parts of India fell to his might.  He even conquered Afghanistan, a feat which no one else has since been able to repeat.  Not even with stealth bombers and satellite-guided JDAMS and Navy Seals.  And yet, homeboy did it with nothing but his balls and a really long spear.

 Every once in a while he would take a breather from conquering to build and/or name a city, just for fun.  Actually it was more than just once in a while; he did it over seventy times.  And he named every single damn one of them Alexandria.  His other most favored diversion was to occasionally marry a local princess or two, but as far as historians can tell he somehow managed to resist the urge to rename any of his brides after himself.

Even in gayncient Greece, weddings like this
were frowned upon.

He would have kept going too; his next agenda item was an invasion of Arabia.  History had other plans for him, however.  Things started to get gloomy shortly after Alexander and his closest friend Hephaestion were married.  Not to each other, just at the same time.  Although Alexander and Hephaestion were lovers, even in super-gay ancient Macedon homosexual marriage was just not cool.  After the wedding(s) everyone headed to Ecbatana to spend a relaxing few months celebrating and soaking up some warm Persian sunshine.  The revelry all came to a crashing halt when Hephaestion died of a mysterious fever in the autumn.

Alex 'n Heffy

Alexander was absolutely inconsolable.  He sprawled himself on the lifeless body of his oldest friend, closest confidant, greatest general, and most cherished lover, and there he wept all day and night.  He went mad with grief, and when he was finally dragged away from Hephaestion's deathbed he shaved his head and ordered that all the horses in the land have their manes and tails shorn as well.  He banned flute playing, and then shortly afterward expanded the ban to include all forms of music.  He executed Hephaestion's doctor, and had the Shrine to Asclepios, the Greek god of medicine, razed to the ground.  After unsuccessfully petitioning the priests of Amon to declare Hephaestion a god, Alexander chose to instead just throw him the most kick-ass funeral ever.  It was unlike anything the world has ever seen.  We know it cost at least ten thousand talents.  Adjusted for inflation, that works out to something like $2.5 billion USD.  So ya, Alexander was upset.

Then one night in May of 323 BC, while diluting the pain of his loss with Babylonian wine, Alexander drank waaay too much, and died slowly of a two week hangover.  Or it might have been typhoid and a perforated intestine.  Apparently it can be hard to differentiate between the two.

He would not have cared exactly what killed him though, because for Alexander the Great, naming as many places Alexandertown as humanly possible was worth any price.

Punic Wars
Timeline: 264 BC - 146 BC
Belligerents: Rome vs. Carthage
Casus belli: dem bitches won't move dey city!

The city of Carthage, ca. 265 BC.

In the middle of the third century BC, the north African city of Carthage was rivaled only by Rome in wealth and power.  The Carthaginian Empire held sway over the entire northern coast of Africa, the southern coast of Spain, and pretty much everything in the Mediterrannean west of Italy.  At the same time, all of Italy had finally consolidated into one power, ruled by Rome.  Carthage had by far the largest navy in existence, and Rome fielded the greatest land armies the world had ever seen.  Sound familiar?

Hannibal of Carthage pioneered the unorthodox
tactic of freezing elephants to death.

Between 264 and 201 BC the First and Second Punic Wars were carried out, easily the largest conflicts in the history of the world up until that time.  Rome and Carthage dueled for places like Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia, Hispania, and Italy itself.  The famous Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca, and his son, the military genius Hannibal, fought and died.  In the Second Punic War, Hannibal marched Spaniards and Elephants alike through the high passes of the Alps and ran rampant through the heart of Italy, wreaking bloody havoc for fifteen years.  But it was not enough to stop the Roman juggernaut.  By 201 BC Carthage had given way to the relentless, growing war machine that was the Roman Empire.  Her vast holdings were systematically disassembled piecemeal, until all that the Carthaginians controlled was the city of Carthage itself.

Like so many men throughout history,
Scipio Africanus, defeater of Hannibal,
got his face on money by helping
wipe out an entire civilization.

Fifty years later, Carthage had finally paid off the war indemnity the Romans had demanded at the end of the Second Punic War.  This released the Carthaginians from their commitment  not to militarize, and so they geared up to sock one to the Numidians, who had been making life rather difficult for them for some time.  The Numidians were balls-deep in business with Rome, but Rome couldn't really do much to intercede on their behalf, as everyone knew the Numidians were complete dickholes, and Carthage wasn't violating any rules by standing up to them.

So naturally the Romans began doing everything they could think of to draw Carthage into a Third Punic War.  They demanded even more indemnity payments.  Carthage complied.  They commanded that the Carthaginian nobility send their children to Rome to be kept as hostages.  Begrudgingly, Carthage again bowed to Rome's demand.  Eventually, in 149 BC, the Romans hit on a winner.  They demanded that the Carthaginians move Carthage.  As in, destroy the city, and go rebuild it somewhere else.  Maybe deeper into Africa?  You know, away from the coast.  Or any rivers.  Or anything valuable.

The city of Carthage, ca. 146 BC.

This proved to be the straw that fucked the camel.  Carthage refused Rome's ludicrous demand, and Rome returned the favor by spending the next three years reducing the greatest city in Africa to a fucked-to-death, smoldering shit-pile of rubble, wiping it clean from the face of the Earth.  The Carthaginian civilization, perhaps the greatest Africa has ever known, ceased to exist.

Driving the point home, the Romans renamed their greatest generals of the wars Africanus, just to be dicks.

Stay tuned for Part Two, coming sometime after now.

Virgins Available Here! (*death required*)

So, jihad has been rather popular in recent years.  I was thinking about jihad, and in particular I was thinking about something we hear about all the time in relation to it: Virgins.

Okay, so maybe I was actually thinking about the virgins first, and how to aquire some, which then led me to thinking about Islamic holy war.  Either way, that's our topic, okay?  Don't judge me.

This man may have a boner
for the rest of time.

We always hear about the 72 virgins Muslim martyrs are supposed to be rewarded with in the afterlife for dying in righteous struggle against the enemies of Islam.  Purportedly, when Muhammad Atta was flying his jumbo jet low over the Manhattan skyline, that is what he would have been thinking about.  All he had to do was hit the tower in front of him and POOF!  Eternal Chubbs.  Easy breezy.

Apart from sounding rather inconvenient, not to mention extremely uncomfortable, an everlastingly turgid penis sounds to me like an unlikely reward for religious service.  What are the practicalities of this?  Inquiring minds want to know!

The Qu'ran itself doesn't say a whole hell of a lot about any virgins for suicide bombers.  What it does say is that all believers (men and women alike) will be resurrected in paradise, "and [with them will be their] spouses, raised high: for, behold, We shall have brought them into being in a life renewed, having resurrected them as virgins."
[Chapter (Surah) Al-Waqi'a (The Event)(56):34-36]

Sounds to me like the Qu'ran is saying that when you die your spouse(s) will be resurrected with you in the afterlife as virgins.  So the only way you're getting 72 is if you already have that many wives when you die.  Atta wasn't even married!  I guess if you believe the Qu'ran, he's going to have an eternity of whackin' off to contend with.

So, no throngs of hot virgins in the Qu'ran.  No, for those, we have to turn to The Hadith.  The Hadith are a whole  bunch of narrative writings, believed by various different Muslims to be of varying authenticity.  There are six major collections of Hadith, and observant followers of Islam pay a great deal of attention to them, as they instruct on how to emulate Muhammad.  Since emulating Muhammad is exactly what Muslims are commanded by God to do, the Hadith can come in handy for them.

The Hadith do, repeatedly and specifically, promise an eternal erection to righteous men.  For real.  I wasn't shitting about that earlier.

The Hadith also have loads of juicy details to dish about the heavenly spouses, which are called houri.  Apparently the houri are eternally young companions of equal age; beautiful, white, and hairless but for their eyebrows and heads.  They have wide and lovely eyes like pearls, with voluptuous, full, firm breasts, which are not inclined to hang.  They are modest and chaste, giving only restrained glances, although their vaginas are extremely appetizing. They do not menstruate, urinate, or defecate.  They do not bear children.  And in spite of their musky smell, they are splendid and pure, with hymens intact.  Also noteworthy is that they all happen to be 27.5 meters tall, 3.2 meters wide, and transparent except for their bone marrow.

So, taken together, what the Islamic scholars of the past 1,400 years are saying is that if you are a dude, and if you believe in Allah and emulate his prophet Muhammad, you are rewarded in Paradise with 72 horny, voluptuous, young, submissive, white female giants with firm, full breasts, brazillian wax jobs, and see-through bodies.  The good news is they're on birth control and don't PMS.  Bad news is they won't do watersports or scat :(

There are roughly 800 million Muslim males alive today.  That means Heaven is going to have to come up with 57.6 billion 90-foot tall, shy, white, hairless, slutty virgins on the pill.

That is just enough houri for the Muslim men alive today.  And Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world...

No wonder God doesn't have time to answer our prayers.

The Sun: Friend or Foe?

Hello, dear readers.

It has been 1,022 days since my last entry.  This time it was not the Uruguayans who waylaid me, no.  Woefully, I fell into the Deep Sleep of the Thousand Days.  A lot of people think that sounds mysterious and powerful. Mystical, they say.  All I know is I sleep for almost three years.  It's just something that happens.  That's all.  I have to find ways to cope with it.  I am coping with it.  I.  Am.    Coping.

So about 3 weeks ago I woke up.  I ate for like a day.  Then back to bed for a couple days.  Sleeping is exhausting!  By about two weeks ago I was up and around.  I caught up on the news, caught up on developments in my extradition case, caught up on Archer and Game of Thrones.  Finally I was ready to go back out in the world, and see what this 2012 business is all about.

The first thing I noticed about 2012 was the Sun. It is BRIGHT.  Like a big ball of hot, bright, bright light and heat, bright and hot in the sky.  It's hard to describe it better than that.  I imagine most of you have seen it.  Just try to remember it for yourself; what what was it like when you saw it?

Bright, right?  And hot?

Yah.  That was my reaction too.

I was compelled to turn around and come back inside and ruminate on this "Sun" thing.  I hadn't really put much thought into it before, but something that bright and hot in the sky must be important.  It must mean something, right?  What is it for?

Turns out, the Sun is actually fairly important.  Yeah, it makes all that light and heat, which is cool, but it also makes all our weather, and it holds us with it's gravity, which is this kind of invisible pulling force which keeps us from flying off into space.  At first when I was thinking about this I wondered if flying off into space was all that bad a thing to have happen.  I mean, we're already in space, so how bad can space be?  But then I remembered Klingons and anal probes.  No flying off into space for me, thanks.  Don't even keep it in your mind as an option.  Thanks, Sun!

The Sun also charges your calculator, tells impoverished people when to get up and get to work, gives vitamins to your skin (without even needing pills), and even dries things out for you, like wet bathing suits, or bloody bathing suits.  Any kind of absorbent material saturated with any kind of liquid, I think.  Someone should probably test that.  Oh, well.  I'm sure science will figure it out eventually.

Anyway, the Sun can do even more awesome stuff than all that.  It can make the seasons, it invented religion and bikinis, and it even gives you a free tan, just for hangin' around with it!  And check this out: it makes everything that grows, grow.  Everything.  That one blew my mind a bit extra when i first read it.

I'm sure there's more, but even just that stuff makes the Sun seem pretty wicked, right?

Wrong.

You're wrong.  Just like I was...


The Sun has a dark side.  It likes to kill people.  Look:

Clearly the Sun hates you.  Even after we worshiped it for so long, and wrote so many happy songs about how bright and warm it is.  Even after all the love we have shown.  The Sun is a murderer.

So what is to be done?

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be much we can do to strike back at the Sun, so far as I can tell.  We can avoid the Sun, shun it as an expression of our disapproval.  That would be one option.  We could bathe in it's comforting rays, but mockingly.  Simply taking what we need from the Sun without showing appreciation.  Making it feel valueless.  But these are, at best, token gestures.  We need a real solution to this problem.  A final solution to the Sun problem, as it were, for the good of us all.

I am establishing a fund, and a brain-trust.  Those of you who see the wisdom of us taking up a struggle to force checks and balances on the currently unlimited power of the evil sun we orbit, join me.  Those of you who want to support our cause but are fearful of leaving the shady shelter of your home can still help out!

Send donation information to capontransfix@gmail.com.

Thank you.

                                                                                    It's good to be back,

                                                                                                  Capon

The Michael Jackson Tribute Suicide Guide

Within days of pop music avatar Michael Jackson's suicide, his most devout and mentally unstable fans were already killing themselves.

Spike.com reported on June 30th, only five days after Jackson's death, that there had already been a dozen cases of fan suicide. Some were already suicidal beforehand. Some were offing themselves in a woefully misguided attempt to be "with him". Some were simply incapable of coping in a world without him, which seems particularly strange to me, as I doubt any of the people who have followed him to his grave had ever met the man. One was even a Michael Jackson impersonator.

Of course, suicide is terrible. It is a waste of the gift that is life, and we should do all we can to stamp it out. One extreme and therefore controversial idea about how to do this is advanced by the Darwinian Society for a Better Tomorrow. They posit that the way to end suicide is to allow it to burn itself out, so to speak. Let the suicidals all kill themselves until there is no one left who wants to die. This is called the self-cleaning oven model.

Now I don't know if that is such a great idea, but I do know that MJ was nothing if he was not a showman, right up to and including the end. So I think he would agree that if you must end your stay in this terrible, empty, Michael Jacksonless world, then you ought to do it with some zazz.

So here are five suggestions for ways in which mourning, inconsolable Jacko fans can make all the pain stop, and pay homage to their fallen hero at the same time. These are not the only acceptable ways, of course. Use your imagination, be creative, and have fun!

Disclaimer

In August of 1992, while Whitney and Bobby where cementing their charmed life together in the bonds of marriage, Michael Jackson was out stopping suicide, as reported in Jet magazine. What were you doing?

Maybe if you try it, his ghost will visit you and talk you out of it...

#5 - The Smooth Criminal Lynching

This one is good for all hopeless MJ fans, but is absolutely perfect for all the emotionally shattered impersonators out there.Get a white Smooth Criminal suit, a hat, some spats, and a noose. Spend some time reflecting on your life, and learn the relevant dance moves by studying the technique of this walrus.
Gather an audience and dance out the entire song, building to the grand finale. Remember, this is your chance to be one with Michael!

Finish with the Smooth Criminal anti-gravity lean. This is a very challenging move, but luckily you will have your handy noose to help you! Really lean into the noose, giving it all of your weight, and soon you will be on your way to Neverland.

Try filming the whole thing for posterity. For extra points, carry all of this out while performing live on American Idol!

#4 - Brain Food

Most of us know that there is no heaven, no paradise after death, no seventy-two virgins, nothing. The best we can hope for in death is some peace and quiet. For the closest available approximation of what we typically tend to think of as the the afterlife, we need to turn to the world of the undead.

Find a zombie or zombies. If none are available, try buying some zombie blood or saliva. Such products are rare, but can often be found for order on LARP supply websites. Insist on a certificate of authenticity; you don't want to waste what little time you have left ingesting the blood or saliva of the living now do you?

Steal Michael Jackson's corpse.Infect yourself, either by goading zombies into biting you, or by ingesting the fluids you have ordered on the internet. Wait several days for the infection to overrun your immune system.

While you wait, infect MJ's corpse by nibbling on him. Avoid the nose, cheeks, forehead, and chin, as they are made of advanced polymers and are difficult to bite through. You can either continue waiting for infection to take hold, or you can bash yourself in the head with whatever is handy until you die. However you go, you will be reanimated in death, and so will Michael.

To keep zombie MJ from wandering off, try to keep a steady supply of pre-pubescent zombie children close at hand. You will have months, or perhaps years, before you both freeze solid, dry out, or rot completely, depending on the local climate. Just you and Michael against the world, for years!

Those years will be amazing.

#3 - Let's Go Out in a Blaze of Glory

In January of 1984, while filming a Pepsi commercial in front of a live concert audience, a pyrotechnic explosion lit Jackson's hair on fire. You can end all of your suffering and re-create one of Michael's most famous moments at the same time!

Go to www.napalm.net and order some of this napalm.

This almost goes without saying, but please set up a camera if you have one. It is important, if not for history, then at least for the Darwinian Society for a Better Tomorrow's research, for you to document this, or any other plan you decide to try.

Once you receive your napalm in the mail, spread it generously through your hair. Napalm is basically gelatinous gasoline, so remember to close your eyes and hold your breath or it will burn! Firecrackers or a roadside rescue flare ought to do the trick for ignition.

If you have the know-how, try setting up your own "Goodbye, Michael" pyrotechnic show as an ignition source.

The rising heat from the ensuing flames will help lift your spirit up to Michael.

#2 - Physics is Your Friend

In November of 2002, Jacko introduced us all to his little pet child named Blanket by dangling him off of a hotel balcony. This is one of the more difficult tribute suicides to perform, but it is also one of the most elegant.

First off, invent time travel. An unknown party has recently bought up most of the world's flux capacitors, but there are other options available out there. For editorial reasons, in-depth instructions on building a time warping device are not included in this guide. Try Google.

Once your time travel device is ready, use it to go back in time to your early childhood. Kidnap your infant self.

You are now faced with several options. You can either dress up as Jackson yourself, or hire an impersonator (if you can find any alive). Which route you take here is simply a matter of personal taste. The important thing to remember is that whatever you should choose to do, someone is dropping that kid off a balcony.

Theoretically, once you die as a child you should also cease to exist as an adult, ending your torment rather quickly and painlessly (for the adult you at any rate). It is possible that for a moment before you pop out of existence you might experience some extremely vivid memories of dying as a child. As you can imagine you might find this to be somewhat unpleasant.Another potential consequence to consider here is the remote possibility of setting up a quantum causality paradox, in which your own death makes your current existence impossible, and your subsequent current lack of existence then negates the act of you kidnapping your young self, therefore setting the time-line back to its original order, allowing you to invent time travel and start the whole paradoxical nightmare over again. Should this occur, we recommend combining the balcony drop with anti-gravity lean strangulation. Follow the steps outlined in method #5 to asphyxiate yourself just as you drop baby you off of any high structure.

By killing both your child and adult selves simultaneously you will break the paradox, freeing humanity from a living hell, and both you and your child self will live amongst the stars with Michael forever.

#1 - The Ultimate Tribute

Of course, if money is not an issue for you, then there is only one proper way to go out in MJ style. Imitation, they say, is the sincerest form of flattery.

Buy or rent an opulent home. Furnish it lavishly, preferably with gigantic quarter-million dollar urns. Buy a Ferris wheel and some go-karts for your back yard.

Hire an unscrupulous personal doctor. You are looking for one with access to black market surgical pharmaceuticals.

Take some time to spend whatever is left of your fortune. You might have so much fun on your slow spiral downward that you end up spending past your limit, living off of creditors for years and years, until finally it is time for you to do what you started out to do.

Offer a massive amount of money to your unethical doctor. Have him administer large doses of propofol, lorazepam and midazolam to you while you lay in bed surrounded by plush animals.

Go to sleep. Dream of your coming life with Michael in the never after.

When you see bright points of light in the distance, pick the second star to the right, and fly straight on till morning...

Sulu, Interrupted

Wow - I made it. I thought I would never get out of that Uruguayan prison. Good thing I turned out to be so good at sexually satisfying 3rd world prison guards. I had no idea I had such a talent. Not that it is hard. Those people will fuck a hole in the ground if given the chance.

Anyway. I am back, and to commemorate the occasion I am going to shamelessly jump on the bandwagon of the latest internet meme.

So here is the untold story of what really happened back in 1968 on the set of Star Trek when George Takei first came out to his fellow cast members...

So the question remains...was it an accident related to the dilithium crystals interfering with the transporter beam? Or did one of you idiots sell Kanye a flux capacitor?

WTF Ad Agency?

Summer is upon us. All the signs of it are around; the air is warm, the days are long, and the multiplexes are playing movies that are even more retarded than usual. The Transformers sequel is the flavor of the moment, and that flavor is apparently something called "strawberried peanut butter". I like strawberries, and sometimes I like peanut butter too. I have, however, never thought to put those flavors together in a candy. To be perfectly honest, I think the two together would be a cloying, ghastly sweet experience, and so I am not in any kind of rush to try it. Many people, however, seem to be in a rush to see this Transformers movie, and someone in an ad agency somewhere figured that would be their in to get people talking about strawberried peanut butter M&Ms.

Why should we be talking about these zany new strawberry infused peanut-butter candies? Well, Michael Bay seems to know, and he isn't telling us. Look at him there, all glazed in purplish-pink candy coating, and grinning at us smugly. He knows why he tastes so great, but you are not famous, rich, or important enough to be let in on the secret. You are, after all, the kind of gibbering moron who is willing to pay fourteen dollars to watch an eighty minute, one hundred million dollar fiasco about giant robots from another planet who can, for some reason, turn into Earth cars, and following that, pay another fourteen dollars to watch basically the same thing again. This makes you the perfect candidate to try out these massively sweetened treats. Shoveling them into your mouth will distract you from the fact that the movie you are watching is pretty much exactly the same one you saw last summer. Mmmmmmmm. Good, aren't they?

So, if you aren't just drooling while you look at the shiny robots above, and are actually still reading, then you may have the bandwidth upstairs to have already started wondering why Michael Bay is a strawberried peanut butter M&M. Where did this idea come from? I imagine any flies on the wall during that marketing meeting came away fully entertained.

So, first, let's check and see if Michael Bay bears any resemblance to a small, ovoid candy.

Hmmm. His head is oblong; not exactly an ovoid. His jaw is much more squared than that of the candy. He is also a bit pink like the candy version, but he does not appear to be glossed with colored sugar. He appears to be a ruggedly handsome jock-nerd hybrid of some sort, definitely cock-sure, probably an alpha. He seems to have more hair than an M&M, unless they have changed a lot since I last had one. I am sure though that he spends much more time on his hair than any kind of candy on the market does, M&Ms included.

I suppose if I really stretched my imagination, he could look something like an M&M, but I can think of loads of other random objects that he looks more akin to. For instance, his strong jaw-line gives his head a cylindrical appearance, not unlike this circa 1800 vaginal douche, made of bone.

I was as struck by the resemblance as you are. You may also be thinking that the resemblance is not just superficial. Like an antique douche, Mr. Bay runs all over town, spraying acid into women's vaginas. Now of course these are metaphorical vaginas, metaphorical acid, and even a metaphorical town, but the metaphor is so apt that I shall leave it up to you to decide what it means.

Also like a two century old vag plunger, Michael is quite valuable. Admittedly, Bay is probably worth quite a bit more than the pictured artefact, but I think you would agree that the douche is more expensive than an M&M. In every way Michael Bay is more like the feminine hygiene product than the candy.

Forget the douching for a minute now. If you are still with me you are either some kind of antique dildo fetishist, or you can see I am really onto something here, so bear with me. Perverts can stay too, but no touching the douche!

So why is Michael Bay an M&M? Well, I think we ought to be as scientific about this as Mr. Bay is with slow-motion explosions. We must consider all of the alternatives. It is possible that this advertisement is actually making a very deep and culturally relevant comment, even if said comment might be completely inadvertent.

Of course there is the point that Michael Bay has come to symbolize the supposed nutritionless nature of our culture. M&Ms lack any real nutritional value beyond raw caloric intake, and Bay's movies are likewise lacking in any substantive content. They are all decoration. That analogy seems a little weak to me, as Bay's films have, on average, zero calories in them. Besides which, it certainly doesn't seem like the kind of thing advertising agents get paid to think about.

Forrest Mars Sr., founder of the Mars Company, came up with the idea for the M&M during his time fighting in the Spanish Civil War, when he saw Spaniards eating them. Exactly where the Spaniards got the idea is not important. What is important is that Mars received a patent on M&Ms in 1941, and production began that year in New Jersey. Michael Bay did not, to my knowledge, fight in the Spanish Civil War, and it is well documented that he hates New Jersey. There is a connection though; Pearl Harbor happened in 1941.

Michael Bay directed Pearl Harbor, Pearl Harbor happened in 1941, and M&Ms were invented in 1941, even though the Spanish had already been eating them since no later than 1939. Now these kinds of coincidences do not just happen, not in this reporter's experience, so what does it mean? It could possibly be evidence that Michael Bay is a member of some ultra-secret society, initially financially backed by the Fascistic Falange, and possibly later by Generalissimo Francisco Franco. This group, the name of which has never been made public, but whom some say are called "The M", are said to have given the M&M concept to Forrest Mars so that they would have a puppet inside the American candy bar industry. Later that year, their new-found leverage on America's economy allowed The M to coerce Roosevelt into ignoring the warnings of the Pearl Harbor attack.

I know this is shocking to hear, and you may not be ready for the truth, but ask yourself this one question: Do you think Michael Bay will ever make a movie telling that story? Of course he won't. He cannot let The M be exposed, or they will cut his dick off in an arcane ritual that you and I are lucky to never have to see. We only have to see the Transformers. We do not have to walk the dangerous, tortured path that a person like Michael Bay walks every day.

I say he is a person, and I suppose he is, but he is more than just a person. I do not mean to say he is an M&M, I mean to say that he is a hero.

He is a hero because in spite of the stresses he endures every day fighting to keep the ideals of The M unsullied, he manages to take a few minutes to entertain you with bright colors and loud noises. You might argue that he gets paid rather well for that, and you never asked him to be in any secret society that protects you from socialism while you mindlessly shove sugar-coated lumps of peanut butter imbued with synthetic strawberry flavoring into your dripping gob, but that would not be paying the man the respect, nay, the reverence that you owe him for his selfless sacrifice. You ought to thank Michael Bay every damn day of your life, plebe, and be glad he only charges you money to watch his color-show.


I am obliged by my editor to mention that there is a popular theory that the advertisement that is the subject of this article is actually inferring that Michael Bay prefers blow-jobs to the ol' rub and tug, as he "melts in your mouth, but not in your hand". I believe this hypothesis to be infantile, and worse it serves only to divert attention from the important issue at hand, which is raising awareness about The M and other frighteningly powerful and dangerous secret societies, such as The Skull and Bones, The Free Masons, The Illuminati, NAMBLA, and the ACLU.

"All it takes to see the truth is to open your eyes."

-Michael Bay, paraphrasing Francisco Franco

Job Interview

[A man has applied for a job as a writer. He has been led into an office and asked to pitch some ideas.]

"Yes, well I have a few ideas. Lemme see. Okay, the story goes like this" -

"The proverb?"

"It's not really a proverb. It's more of a story."

"Oh. Okay."

"Well, there's this man, and he's a glutton. He loves to eat. He eats everything he can afford to eat. Savory foods, sweets, the whole shabang."

"So he's a fat guy."

"Yeah, probably. But that's not the point. He wants to be eating all the time. This man is just addicted to food."

"So the fat guy likes to eat. What's the point in that?"

"The point - The point is something happens to him. He ends up being able to taste whatever he wants just by thinking about it and chewing. You see, his deepest desire is realized. If he wants crabcake - POOF - he feels and tastes crabcake in his mouth. If the thought of a chilled martini to wash down the crabcake crosses his mind he instantly gets the flavor and feeling of it. Every whim of the gourmet variety is instantly realized for him. He luxuriates in his new gift, and soon he begins to lose all of his will to feed himself any food of substance. Whenever he starts to think that perhaps his body may require some food he tastes whatever delicacy is bouncing around in his subconscious mind. Eventually he becomes a useless wreck, wallowing constantly in imagined culinary bliss until ultimately he dies of dehydration."

"No kidding."

"Sorry?"

"I'd have expected him to starve if he weren't eating. I guess that's the irony of your proverb."

"It's not a proverb" -

"Of course. So why doesn't he drink something?"

[a pause]

"Well, for the same reason he doesn't eat anything. His desires are instantly satisfied. If he wants a glass of water he feels himself drink one, and then he no longer wants one."

"Hmmm." ----- "And what makes that happen?"

"Well, we don"t know. I think the story is more compelling if that's left up to the reader."

----- "Kind of asking a lot of your reader to leave finishing the story up to him, isn't it?"

----- "Well, I" -

"We're looking for a clearer message for this thing here. We're shooting for something that'll hit people and stick to 'em. Why don't you try trimming it down a little?"

"If I may sir, how long would you like the story?"

"Well, I myself like proverbs, you know? They're quick and to the point - like 'don't piss in the wind' and 'does the pope shit in the woods'. Try writing it as a proverb."

"But I can't write a proverb."

"Bullshit! 'If you're thirsty, get to pourin' the water'. There's your story."

"But in order for that to be a proverb, everyone would have to have been saying it for so long that no one can remember where it came from. That's what a proverb is!"

"Don't tell me what a proverb is. Show me what a proverb is."

----- "Do you mean, like, with a diagram?"

"Look son, if you want this job you've got it."

"Really?"

"Yep - you just have to give me a proverb. Spit one out right now."

"Right now?"

"No time like the present."

"Okay." ----- "A bird in the hand is worth more than two in the bush."

"No, no - you didn't write that. Let's hear something new."

"I'm sorry sir, I thought you meant" -

"Go ahead when you're ready"

[a long pause]

"Okay - here goes." ----- "To stop wanting is to stop living." ----- "Sir?"

"I'm not sure what it means."

"Alright. I'm sorry to waste your time" -

"But what does it matter if I 'understand' it? It's short and I like it. It's decisive." ----- "Welcome aboard."

"What?"

"You've got the job. You start" [checks his watch] "twenty-six seconds ago. Right when you came up with that fabulous proverb. I really admire your work. Heady stuff."

[handshake]

"Thank you sir."

"No. Thank you."