The Story So Far

When my hungover mind scans my recently added memories, it can’t remember a night where I haven’t drank. Is this the first sign that I have a problem?

Or a high score I should attempt to achieve?

There is lot’s to forget, in a world where a group calling themselves “teabaggers” wants to be taken seriously. That’s right: they are named after dropping your nuts in someone’s mouth, and they march on Washington with their pictures of our first black president as a witch doctor and say, “TAKE US SERIOUSLY!”

“KEEP YOUR GOVERNMENT OUT OF OUR SOCIAL SECURITY.”

“NEXT TIME, WE’LL BRING GUNS!”

And on and on and on.

They have a few leaders, these self-deprecatingly named douche-mongers: one is a winking hockey mom from Alaska who simultaneously thought prayer was the best defense for our nation, claimed she read every newspaper in the world and was almost elected vice president.

The other is a crying Mormon from a fake news station (but not an entertaining fake news station like The Onion) who complains that an oligarchy is happening and can’t even spell the word. He finds communism and socialism in everything, even things built by Rockefeller, who was, if you weren’t aware, one of the gods of Capitalism.

Nowadays all our gods are fake. The God god turned out to be bust. Our greatest prophet, the one who paved the way and voiced our frustration, was Tyler Durden. He is a literary character who is imaginary even in his own book. The leader of Generation Why is probably Jon Stewart, a funny man who reports fake news which is more factual than real news.

God is dead, and his kryptonite was apathy. Also: never existing.

So the nutjobs are in full force and inbetween my rare bouts of working and writing, I comment on a local newspaper’s ( not my own ) comment board. The right wing loonies and left wing goofballs continually chuck links at eachother, and most of them refuse to admit any wrongdoing on their own side.

I attempt to act as a monkey wrench in their arguments, except for one dude, who continually uses phrase like Obamao. Every time he makes a long vitriolic diatribe ( I hate both of those words so much, they are used by morons to sound intelligent and they fail ) I just pretend like he wrote queen lyrics.

It keeps my sanity a little more intact.

Not much else as far as energy is spent on that front anymore. Meghan and I left our lame lives in Missouri to travel to a strange and distant land. Like reverse superman we gave up our powers to land near a dying star.

Barreling in through the mountains like Hannibal on elephants, except our ride was a silver 2001 Honda, our Scipio was a shattering Gen-Y sense of self-deprecation and we had absolutely no plan, my girlfriend and I arrived in Vancouver with no jobs, no friends and no source of income.

Perception is everything. I mean, there is definitely an objective world out there, that stays the same, and a rock for me is a rock for you and no matter who we are, if we jump off a building and plummet a hundred stories we will die. But how we filter the world, those objective facts and scientific theorems, those mathematic equations that got us to the moon . . . that is what truly makes us individuals.

My filter is dirty.

So is everyone elses. So at least it’s a level playing field.

To the Anti-Choice Group Which Decided To Kick Off It's Shindig On My Birthday

(I posted the following on their blog, but I doubt it will pass moderation)

Listen,

First of all, your archaic sexist anti-rights organization is starting it's campaign on my birthday. That is bad enough, but petty, and I realize that. However, I thought I would lead off with the least crucial of my points, as I am 99% sure this post will be deleted soon anyway, I figured at the very least you would hear something that a million other rational voices aren't telling you.

Second, you are men. Men shouldn't be pro-life, because men don't have babies. Your reproductive and physical choices are all up to you. If you have a growth you want removed, no one can stop you. If you want to get your tubes snipped, this is your right. No one will stop you. So you shouldn't be involved in legislation which affects women. And I know you will counter with the fact that you are "fighting for the unborn." Strangely enough, I don't remember them ever asking you to do that.

Thirdly, you are obviously a Christian organization, and yet I noticed you are not spending all your time helping out widows and orphans. You aren't in fact following numerous Biblical mandates. The following bible verses are New Testament quotes you are ignoring:

1Timothy 2:11 Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.
12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

Matthew 5:38 Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.
39 But I say to you, That ye resist not evil: but whoever shall strike thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.
40 And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also.
41 And whoever shall constrain thee to go one mile, go with him two.
42 Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee, turn not thou away.

Luke 14:12 Then said he also to him that invited him, When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbors; lest they also invite thee again, and a recompense be made thee.
13 But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind:
14 And thou shalt be blessed: for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.

Luke 14:33 So likewise, whoever he is of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.

Matthew 19:21 Jesus said to him, `If thou dost will to be perfect, go away, sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come, follow me.'

James 1 27Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

So, if you guys are going to follow those verses, I commend you. Although I do expect this website to go down since you have to sell all your money to give to the poor. And I am now, formally requesting your cloaks and a thousand bucks. I will give you an address later where you can send them.

On a related note, here are the bible verses mentioning pro-life issues:

....

Moving on, my final point is this. Whatever you believe the Bible to say, whatever you think it says about life and all that, you are hurting people right now. There are people who need health care and you are taking one point of this bill and running with it. You are refusing to allow people to learn about sex in schools, refusing to allow people to have birth control and condoms, calling abortionists murderers and directly influencing all these insane actual murderers out there who shot up guys WALKING OUT OF CHURCH: all in the name of the prince of peace? Seriously, if you took your Bible and your religion seriously, you would keep your rosaries off of women's ovaries and go out there to help the hurting, curtail unwanted pregnancies, and take care of the widows and orphans.

I think you'd make God proud.

Everyone is Stupid

I think I have come down the root cause of our current economic troubles / world issues / societal problems. Everyone in the world is retarded. With the possible exceptions of Noam Chomsky, Lex Luthor, and whoever invented the McRib, everyone is waste of space. Everyone else could be replaced by an adorable kitten and the world would most definitely be a much better place.

I have recently traversed the United States, traveling over three thousand miles with my favorite person, and realized that the whole country has gone to shit. Now I know I am only 22 (although I turn 23 on the 23rd so here comes my golden year) but I am pretty sure I have enough experience to realize we are a failed experiment. Do you ever think about the first ape-like ancestors coming down out of the trees a hundred thousand years ago and wonder, "Where the fuck were the sabretooth tigers that day?" They could have gotten rid of all of us, gotten a filling lunch, and we never would have inflicted Dashboard Confessional on the collective conciousness of the universe. Or, if you are religious, do you not wonder, between extended periods of not thinking, why God didn't look at the millionth person to maim a child and think, "Well, screw these guys," and use his equivelant of Omnislash to lay waste to all of us mouth-breathing takers?

I guess what has actually been getting under my skin is the sense of entitlement that we all have. We are just living things, created from carbon, just like the animals and the trees, but we refuse to acknowledge that. Beyond that, most of us refuse to acknowledge that other humans of different skin-tone or nationality are actually deserving of the same dignity as ourselves. I saw a quote in the paper the other day where the Prime Minister of Britian was talking about upping the military prescense in Afghanistan since they were "still a threat to freedom." Really? Those guys thousands of miles away using cold-war era planes which don't work in the rain are a threat to Britian? Ok.... And America uses over fifty percent of our budget on either new military conquests or maintaining troops throughout the world, yet we wouldn't dare allow another country to do the same. At the same time, we are now in the middle of a raging debate which mostly centers around us not having enough money to help people survive, feed people, or curtail our rape and pillage of our planet. It's like standing in the middle of a burning down house but saying you can't afford water to put it out because you have to spend the money on guns to rob your neighbor.

Atop that, the job market is promising. Everyone has leapt balls first into the technological revolution with no idea of how to actually use the technology. I have attempted to get an application for a local grocery store, Fred Meyer (which I already hate because of the dumbass name). But the store has not paper applications, however, they thankfully gave me a phone number to call. The phone number also wouldn't let me apply, not would it let me talk to a human, but an automated voice did let me know that there were multiple positions available at the store I was wanting and that I must apply online. So I get online, which tells me there are no positions available, there is no way for me to just leave a resume with them, but I can inquire within the store.... and we wonder why all our jobs are going overseas. Maybe because John Q. Chinese doesn't suck at his job.

I've also tried Blockbuster, where I thought my casual knowledge of movies would be helpful. Apparently not. Besides the fact that I am pretty sure there is a 200 pound weight minimum to work there, knowing anything about actual movies is apparently not encouraged. The dumb bitch working behind the counter didn't know who Terry Gilliam or Christopher Nolan or Batman were, and didn't understand my indignation at Eternal Sunshine being in the comedy section. In fact, things have gotten so desperate that Meghan and I are attempting to apply at local Starbucks (of which there are a million). However, online, when I attempted to click location, instead of giving me a list of states, it supplied me with a list of EVERY FUCKING COUNTRY IN THE WORLD, which was as specific as I could get. I sent in my application to be part of Research and Development in Afghanistan.

I am so going to threaten Britian's freedom.

Betrayal

One dollar movie night Monday at a place downtown, where every buck gives you the ability to see Public Enemies and the Taking of Penhalm 123, an unpassable deal, even though I wouldn't sit through the Washington/Travolta nightmare for all the comics in Kevin Smith's house. The movie was superb by the way, Michael Mann's indie digital style atop an awesome storyline about John Dillinger, who if you didn't know was probably the coolest, cockiest American sonuvabitch since Teddy Roosevelt, the kinda guy who would rob banks theatrically but refuse to take the patrons money, who once convinced a whole bank he was filming a robbery while he was actually casing the joint, and was gunned down in cold blood by some backhanded dealings by J. Edgar Hoover's top man, Melvin Purvis.

The point is I watched the whole damn thing in the beat up old theatre, Meghan and I passing back and forth a watered down four dollar coke, although most of the passing went to me, and trying to wolf down the one dollar Red Vine brand Twizzlers, which tasted less like Twizzlers and more like plaster, and near the end I realized that this whole thing was bullshit. Not the movie, which, as previously stated, was kick ass, but the whole idea of power. The balance of it. Some of the stuff the government did in that movie, especially to Dillinger's galpal Billie, was down-right detestable. And I am sure, as with all biopics (how do you say that fucking word?), it is overdone, but goddamn it anyway, some of the stuff our country does is ridiculous.

Afterwards we went to a bar down the way, where I had two cranberry vodkas and a rumplemintz shot (meghan had one beer and two tequilas, since she is definitely more of a man than I), and we sat around, attempting to converse but mostly distracted by three ambient factors: ESPN, a picture slide show, and a loud bald guy.

ESPN is the bastion of television sports, where I get to watch dudes in knickers try to hit balls with sticks and then run in a circle. And these men get paid millions of dollars annually to hit said balls and run in said circles. Not that I am crying sour grapes, but if our capitalist society thinks ball hitters deserve millions a year and the local Boys and Girls club owner, who is a standup dude who runs a charity which watches hundreds of local children, get's shit on all year, I think our priorities are just messed up.

The Picture slide show was of a local photographers art. Here's a pro-tip : chicks without shirts on does not a classy artist make. Not that putting sepia fucks holding bible verses is any better, but apparently we can't have a middle ground in the land of ideological consensus. In fact, some would say that women could be appreciated fully clothed. I know it is a controversial thought in a nation which allows Miley Cyrus to pose topless for magazines and do pole dances at the kid's choice awards, but mayhaps we could allow children, even children actors, to not sell themselves for sex. Just a thought.

And finally we had baldy, wearing his football jersey, loudly harping on governments spying on our phones, how many awesome battles he had had in bars, and occasionally Yankee Candles. He was the loudest person in the bar, garnered most of the attention, and noone, including myself or lovely date, let the idiot know he was making a complete ass out of himself. I am so sick of the loudest moron being the one who wins the debate (a phenom epitomized in our recent town hall meetings) but I am not doing a goddamn thing to stop it. I just don't know if it is worth it.

So in the end, I feel like I am walking outside a movie theater, just having watched a classy Clark Gable flick, with my whole past right beside me. Only I don't know she has set me up for failure, I don't know the white suited gentleman has been waiting for me to step outside the line, to leave my home state or dare attempt to get a job as anything other than a burgerflipper, and as soon as I open my mouth he is going to fill me with lead, lean down to my face, and pretend he didn't even know my last words.

Spoiler Alert: We lose. Winners win.

Either way, I am not scared of anything, and maybe someday I will summon up that John Dillinger courage in real life, the courage to stand up to bullshit and scoff and joke and take everything you can take from it before it wins. Just because the battle is inevitable doesn't mean I can't blow up something huge before the finale.

Local Hero Disproves Science, Kills Child

Carl Worthington, Oregon City native and believer in the power of prayer, was recently acquitted of manslaughter charges related to the death of his 15 month old daughter. Though the child developed an easily treatable cyst in her neck, her parents decided to forgo antibiotics and instead rely on anointing oil and that old pentecostal fire. When God felt it appropriate to bless her with a cold, the prayers continued, and eventually that blossomed into full fledged pneumonia, which was followed by full fledged death.

Crusaders Against "Big Science"

Though the jury decided to drop the Manslaughter charges, this brave soul was still found guilty of Criminal Mistreatment, which carries a maximum sentence of one year in jail. This is an outrage, obviously. This man literally just lost a child, and the secular progressives are going to send him to jail? Put that on top of the fact that he is a member of the Followers of Christ church, an organization which exposes any type of medical treatment for what it truly is: a satanic lack of faith in Jesus. This group experiences a child mortality rate 26 times higher than the sinful world around it. Haven't they already been through enough?

This hero and his wife, who has been blessed with a replacement pregnancy (Job 42:13), are part of an attack by a small minded minority of influential elites I like to call Big Science. These are the same heretical apostates which push ideas like vaccinations, blood donations, and world-hunger prevention on a public which would just like to leave well enough alone, cast the lots, and let God decide on what happens. He makes men cripples and blind for a reason, so that, as John 9 teaches, "the works of God should be made manifest in him." Every day I see Christians with crutches or glasses and it makes me sick. This lack of faith can be blamed for a lot in our generation.

In conclusion, let us pray other cases around the country help bolster this precedent of this case. If we aren't allowed to neglect our Children, who will?

Top Four Least Righteous Things About Living In Vancouver

Four : The radio still has multiple conservative and christian talk stations

How does Murdock's dick taste, douchebag?

I like watching terrible movies, even though I know they are going to be terrible. And not always for the entertainment factor. Case in point, Fireproof, the Kirk Cameron fiasco about men getting respect and bitches knowing their place. This movie was not fun, and I knew it would not be fun. But I could not keep away. I am like the kid with the tongue and the outlet.

So no matter how many awesome CD's I have, no matter how short of a car ride I am going on, I cannot help myself from listening to whatever bullshit is on, be it Glen Beck or Hank Hannigraff or, even the golden snitch of moronic radio personalities, Sean Hannity.

Of course, this is a problem I would have anywhere in the country, and it is definitely a much more accepting environment over here. However, that leads to other issues...

Three : Being surrounded by people you agree with politically

Good for yewww!

Ya wanna know what's fun? For me at least? Arguing. Having a thoughtful disagreement. Making mental chess moves. Coming to a reasonable conclusion and parting as friends. I remember talking to Raj about a number of issues, none of which we agreed with in the slightest, but at least it all stayed civil. But being surrounded by self-important morons who have the same ideological stances as you is at the very least disquieting, and at the very most fucking infuriating.

For instance, the first week we came here Meghan and I both went to an interview for a job which described itself as something promoting green energy. That's all well and good (as a great sidenote, driving across the country we saw semi's transporting the parts of those ginormous windmills. They are bigger than my mind can stand, bringing Shadow of the Colossus to mind), but when we arrived in the room I got my first inkling that something was amiss. The room smelled like patchouli, everyone was wearing very hipster-chic clothing, and I counted more dreadlocks than I had ever seen in my life.

Ok, I can stand this. Hippies love all that renewable bullshit. Plus, the lady running the meeting is dressed casually, but not too over-the-top. Then she started talking.

Well, fuck. She talked about how her fund-raising organization was started to stop bush from being elected in 2004, to uproariously applause from the room of twelve potential applicants.

It was at this point I checked out of the conversation. I mean, first of all, she said fund-raising. Fund-raising is the dumbest goddamn job ever. You spend your time out panhandling for multi-national corporations, then turn the moolah over to said multi-nation corporation, your only recompense being minimum wage, a sunburn, and an undeserved mark of pride. Secondly, the lady was bragging about failing at something. We get it, it is topical and edgy to hate the former president, he was Hitler and the anti-christ. I guess at least he and Obama (or, as the radio calls him, Obamanable, which is decidedly clever) have something in common. And finally, she bragged about getting Obama elected. Really, it was a small grass roots campaign in Portland that got me to vote for our president? Eat my nuts, you pretentious bitch.

Two : Being Portland's elephant graveyard

I live in the gimp

I am sure whenever I told you guys I was going to Vancouver you thought, "Is Mat moving to Canada, eh?"

First off, clever.

Second, Vancouver is a bit obscure. Meghan described it as Portland's asshole. Right next to all the action but getting none of it. And when we do it stinks.

The art is meh. The theatres aren't that great. Although there is a rockin' gay community , even that feels a little forced , with everything from gay massage parlours to gay hearing aid specialists. I kid you not. Their slogan : "Where queers come to hear."

It all reeks of that forced quaintness, that "yeah we will pretend like we are north Portland when it is financially viable but we don't really fall into that debauchery." But hey, it's still better than Missouri, so suck it.

One : I am still in the stupid goddamn USA

It's cause he doesn't have a brain and he represents America LOL! Huh? Huh? Nudge nudge.

Listen: At age seven I stopped liking America. It was at that time that I learned about Thanksgiving, how every year I gave thanks to God for letting my ancestors systematically and legally rape the native peoples who had given them nothing but kindness. I learned about slavery, how humans were used as farm equipment, only released when it was financially viable, then shit on legally for the next hundred years, and illegally since then. I learned that we loved to stick our noses where it didn't belong, where it wasn't wanted, and we loved to be the only guy on the block with that privilege.

Capitalism just doesn't jive with me. I was fed this line when I was a kid, about working my way up, about people making more money because they earn it. But when the bottom 80% of our populous is all fighting for 7.5% of the pie, then something is fucking wrong. So I know that I will not live here forever, and I know that when I do leave, I will be more comfortable.

Thing is, I didn't move from Missouri to change the world. I didn't do it because I thought everything would be hunky dory. I did it because Meghan and I really didn't like our situation and wanted to try something new. Springfield might work for a lot of people, and Chemical Reaction bless them, I hope for the best. But it felt like a straight jacket to me in a million ways, and even though I am sleeping on the floor with fifteen bucks to my name, I still can breathe.

Work still sucks. But I have love and music and blackberries grow by the roads. The skies are big and I am surrounded by mountains. I have an ipod I can use to block out all the idiots, even the smug morons and the talking heads. I have a lady who makes me lunch every day, who holds me and makes me feel groovy even when the world goes up in flames.

And I got plans for an even greater escape.

15 Overrated Things

Note: Just because the things are on this list doesn't mean they suck. It means they are overrated. Also, they are in no real particular order.


I. Obama Sure, Obama is great right? I mean whenever we got to practice democracy, which apparently means picking between two dudes, he definitely came out on top.

Not Pictured: Journalistic Integrity

But the way people talk about him is a bit overblown, whether by his supporters or his critics. I mean, on one hand, he is only a politician, one who hardly showed up to vote, is able to speak for a very long time without saying anything, and, for chrissake, he appointed the useless H-Ton as his secretary of state. On the other, this dude has hardly started off as strong as what I would hope from the next Hitler, nor has he restarted sacrifices in Israel while performing miracles, so not much of an Anti-Christ either. Seriously. Let's just get off this guys dick.

II. Monopoly Monopoly is so boring it makes me unable to write a good analogy. It isn't fun. It isn't cool. It takes at least twenty hours to actually finish a game. It is a game about collecting properties and paying taxes. Why do people keep playing this? Especially grandmas. I mean, in general, Board Games are bogus, but to them Monopoly is like a good analogy compared to the one at the beginning of this paragraph.

III. Charles Dickens Dear lord, reading this shit makes me wish I was playing monopoly. I mean, there are reasons that books don't typically follow an entire person's life from start to finish. The first chapter of David Copperfield is "I am Born." And not a single fucking magic trick. And with Great Expectations, this dude somehow made boring a book which involved an insane convict threatening a child, an old woman who never changes her clothing getting set on fire, and a main character named Pip. PIP! That is fucking hilarious.

Burn, Bitch. Burn.

The only good part of this hack's writing is the fact that his misuse of a talking Raven in his serial Barnaby Rudge led to a much more talented (and much more insane) Poe to write one of the greatest poems ever. Way to inspire excellence, Dick-ens. LOL!

IV. GTA4 See what I did there with the fours? This game blew major ass. The main character was difficult to relate to, the game mechanics were flawed in a way that made getting into cars, much less shooting while driving them, difficult, and above all the story, which is tauted as one of the BESTEREST STORIES EVA!!1!!!one!, actually was just mundane. Oh man, you came from another country and now you are going to make it to the top and get revenge and...snooze. I beat this game, because the city was beautiful and I am a glutton for punishment (I also beat Superman 64 and the newest Superman movie game, if that means anything to you) but this game was shit. Not the shit. Just shit.

V. Seinfield Now I apologize if you are dumb and like this show, but be sure to revise your opinions. Jerry Seinfield just is not funny. Neither is his show. Let's make a show about nothing! Let's have a crazy roomate and a girl who sucks at dancing and a jewish balding midget who yells when he gets excited. Woot. People pretend like this was the best thing on television while shows like MST3K and Dead Like Me get cancelled. Fuck Seinfield.

VI. U2 Listen to How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. Listen to reviews. Be very, very confused.

VII. There Will Be Blood P.T. Anderson kicked ass with Punch-Drunk Love. I like things with a slow buildup, as long as eventually that comes to fruition. And by fruition I don't mean having the main character slip into madness, quote an obscure Senate hearing from the twenties which ends up becoming an internet meme, then murder an actor who wasn't even supposed to be playing the fucking preacher role that he butchered. also Spoiler Alert. I mean DDL kicked ass in that flick, but he was surrounded by shit, and the symbolism was a bit heavy. And this is coming from someone who doesn't get symbolism. Who thought that the Grapes of Wrath just really liked turtles. So yeah.

Wait, my greed hurt my son. Greed...son...i don't get it.

VIII. People Criticizing Dane Cook Constantly Is he funny? No. Is he as terrible as everyone says he is? Of course not. I mean some of his stuff is genuinely chuckle worthy. And if he stole it from Louis C.K., sorry, but come on. Louis C.K. wasn't using it. Louis C.K. sucks. And he looks like Joe (no offense Joe). And sure, he uses noises for punchlines, but I know lots of prominent local comedians who do that. And by prominent I mean I work with them. But if all you do is sit around listing the things you don't like.... nevermind.

IX. Richard Dawkins My descent, ascent, whatever-cent into atheistic thought was very much conducted by Richard Dawkins. He knows more about biology than anyone has any right to. Did you see how I used the word Meme up there? Did you know he invented it? When his works center around his area of expertise, he is mindblowingly awesome. When his works center around critiques of the Christian God, he is hilarious in that only-brits-can-be-this-dry sort of way. But when he starts saying that God can be disproven scientifically...*dismissive wank*. Of course, his followers are worse than the Goddamn'd Spaghetti Monster people, and that is where the overrating comes from. People pretty much lift him up as high as he lifts up Darwin (i mean honestly, does this dude get a dollar every time he says Darwinian? He used the term in The God Delusion like fifty-million times), and that is a bit too high in my book of what should be at what height. Nooch.

X. Abraham Lincoln That's right. I think Abraham Fucking Lincoln is overrated.

Ok...admittedly this picture is in poor taste.

Wanna know why? No? Then stop reading. If so, consider this: Lincoln is remembered as a key figure in Civil Rights legislation. He freed the slaves he freed the slaves and so on. But, although he is definitely a great symbol in civil rights, he really wasn't that great of an actual, ya know, person when it came to race relations. He said in the famed Lincoln-Douglas debates that he didn't think that there should ever be any equality between whites and blacks. In fact, he said this:

"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races-that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social or political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion that I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position that the Negro should be denied everything.

Of course, it was a different time and all that, and I bet most people would probably have agreed with such sentiments. But that doesn't mean we should hold him in a higher regard than we ought. Additionally, the Emancipation Proclamation was a political move which simultaneously turned the Civil War, which up to that point had been a multi-faceted conflict, into one about slavery which insured that Europe stayed out, and also did jack shit. He freed all the slaves in the confederacy, which at that time was another country. This would be like Obama decreeing all Canadians have to stop wearing R-tarded hats.

XI. Superman Superman is like that kid that you used to play with, and whenever you were pretending to shot at eachother, he would always say something like, "Force-field" or "You Missed" or "That's My Danger Zone, Stop It," and ruin all the fun. No matter what you throw at Superman he wins. Hands down. His comics are just a series of events wherein criminals / Lex Luthor / Brainiac gets Kryptonite and it doesn't work. Even his death was a sham. And that's just the recent comics. His old stuff is even worse.

Superman has anti-hit music powers which he refused to use against Hanson. Asshole.

People still want to make movies about this guy and talk about how awesome all his old movies were and, ugh, it's just shit. In fact, if I can think of one strike against Batman, it's that he never drove his orphaned ass over to Metropolis and put a green cap in Supes ass.

XII. Beer Beer makes my tummy hurt.

XIII. William Shakespeare Honestly? This guy wrote a bunch of shit, supposedly. I am not going to go into the theories about who really wrote all his crap, because that's what it is: crap. It doesn't matter who made it, it still stinks. Shakespeare wrote a lot of plays which jerked off the king, he wrote in iambic pentameter and rhyme, and whenever he couldn't think of a good word to fit his "rigid structure" he just made one up. I mean people talk about Shakespeare like he is the end all be all when there are people like Poe, Elliot, and Cummings who wrote much better, much less predictable shit. His plays were whack too, mostly just vulgar things written in a very pretty way. I think the worst part though, and what qualifies him for this list, is his fans. These plays were written to be bawdy and funny, and the people who act them out today are such overactors. They draw out every syllable, make everything seem so ripe with meaning when really it has about as much depth as a Kevin Smith line. In fact...maybe in five hundred years people will look back at Kevin Smith's scripts and perform them in the same manner. Can you imagine the futuristic version of Patrick Stewart, wearing a gold embroidered store clerk shirt, saying, "Try not to suck....anyone's...COCK....in the parking lot."

XIV. Family Guy How funny is it to repeat things? Repeat things? Say them over and over again with a higher and higher tone? A higher tone? When you repeat things. Repeat them. Over and over, repeating? I used to be a huge fan until this show started to suck nards. It constantly throws back to itself, subverts being clever by being "shocking," and has become a maze of unrelated pop culture references, extremely awkward dialogue (not awkward in the cool The Office sense, awkward in the Hugh Grant stuttering sense), and extremely elaborate musical numbers which in some way sate Seth MacFarlane's ridiculous obsession with musical theater, which in itself is dreadful (sorry, gays.) People are constantly singing Family Guy's praises and, true, it does occasionally have very funny moments. But it has run it's course, and needs to be put down. Sometimes, I wonder if the show used to be funnier if I used to be dumber. It's hard to sleep those nights.

XV. Jesus The most overrated figure of all time. Again, let me clarify: this does not make him bad. I am sure that the original Jesus (ya know, if he existed) was probably a great guy. Probably said a lot of cool stuff, hung out with social outcasts, really shook up things around the religious folks. Anyone who is willing to kick ass in the temple and command others to turn the other cheek is either ballsy or insane. Probably both.

"I'll teach you to leave your deceptive fossils everywhere!"

However, it doesn't seem like being a great guy was good enough. People had to corrupt him. They took him from a meek Jew and turned him into a mighty savior, then into God himself. I can imagine the word spreading like wildfire across the desert and, as telephone games tend to go, snowballing into the gigantic myth which was penned a century after Jesus' death. The Holy Book associated with Jesus is the most stolen book on the planet, and is full of all kinds of silliness and bigotry, spread around some amazingly bloody stories and ridiculous poetry. He is used to fight poverty and progress, to stop fights and to spawn wars.
People turn Jesus into whatever they need. Ask a Catholic, Mormon, Baptist, and Pentecostal what they think of Jesus and you will get four radically different answers. People need something bigger than themselves to believe in, some huge hope for times of trouble and death. Something that will let us know that the world will be alright. And Jesus is that for so many people. And yet at the same time...

Who wins? Youtube.

...he is a fuel for ignorance and hate. People will resist progress just because they think Jesus told them not to.
In all honesty, joking aside, I imagine the bastardization of Jesus' image and message find an analogy in a more contemporary figure: Che Guevara. To oversimplify his message, Che was a fighter against capitalism. He thought it oppressed people and was bad. And yet, nowadays, his image is used to sell more graphic t's to college kids who know jack shit about him than anything else. His image is having the exact reverse effect he fought for. And I imagine the actual, non tainted Jesus, is probably in the same boat somewhere.
Ya know, wherever religious figures and communists can get a boat after they die.