Happy Podcasting Day! A few weeks ago we called you all cowards who wouldnât dare listen to a long and terrible podcast…
And you guys loved it!
So we did it again.
Thatâs how it works. If you tell us you like to be tortured, weâre going to torture you. Itâs more about customer service than it is sadomasochism, but itâs definitely both.
We donât even know where to go from here, if you guys like this one. Analyze the comedic structure of the Armenian genocide? Make jokes about transcripts from the 9/11 planes? Track the warning signs for the John Wayne Gacy murders using only his unpublished amateur comic strips about a wacky cat who wears themed helmets?
This isnât sustainable. You need to stop us. You have to tell us to knock it off and get back to making dick jokes about golden-age Spiderman or we are going to spiral into the void fuck fuck we are begging you to be our anchor we are drifting. Much like Bill Cosby, we are leaving you elaborate clues through our collected works because we canât believe you havenât caught us by now.
Donât listen to this podcast wherever you get podcasts, and for fuckâs sake do not subscribe to and review it.
This is your fault.
This is all your fault, weâre putting it on you.
Much like Bill Cosby in both his book crimes and actual crimes, we accept no responsibility for our actions, and are sorely disappointed in your lackluster efforts to apprehend us.
If you missed Dick Fight Island, Part 1, youâre not reading this. Youâre already dead by now. The 1900đ legions, armed with their new knowledge of and passion for dickfighting have already killed you in an amateur dickfighting accident. But if youâve just been caught in a neverending dong battle gauntlet and last week feels like a lifetime ago — a different, worse life, where you had never fought dicks — Iâll catch you up:
Dick Fight Island is about men fighting with dicks on an island.
Now that youâre all caught up, letâs check in on Judah, who lost in part 1 by buttfucking in a dickfight:
He is the laughingstock of the island, and absolutely deserves it. Itâs no shame to lose to Pisao — Iâm sorry, Mister Dicksplitter — but to lose a dickfight by getting pulled into another manâs ass is like losing an MMA match by getting pulled into another manâs ass. Thereâs really not a metaphor for this.
Next up is a battle between the beautiful Moon Clanâs Blanc, and the redwood-packinâ Earth Clan leader, Lolo:
Now, the point of the Dick Fights is to make your opponent orgasm first, a simple and noble sport that might be mistaken for sex, if youâre an idiot. If youâre expecting a respectful tete-a-tete of gentle teases and caresses, you rode the ferry too far. You meant to get off on Clam Jam Cayman. This is Dick FIGHT Island:
Lolo opens this match like I assume all gay men initiate consensual sex: By dive-tackling their partner and shattering their ceremonial codpiece with their bare hands.
Lolo fights like he fucks: to the death.
But Blanc is wily, and he has a secret weapon – heâs also the islandâs Foot Guy.
Itâs amazing Foot Guys are still allowed in the Dick Fights after the athleteâs foot epidemic that wiped out a forest of promising young wood back in â96, but it wouldnât be Dick Fight Island without a twist: Blanc isnât into your feet, his feet are into you – he actually has nimble monkey toes which he uses to masturbate opponents while strangling them. He also uses his weird freak feet to quickly unlace Loloâs Dong Beetle armor, then skillfully executes a power deepthroat into a naked rear ballchoke. Forcing Lolo to scream his catchphraseâŚ
âTO THINK MY JEWELS COULD BE THIS VULNERABLE!â is the clear attention-grabber, but thereâs so much to unpack in every panel.
Again, please remember this island views man on man sex as a battle activity — theyâre so not gay they never invented anal sex. So that play-by-play from the crowd, where they openly marvel at Blancâs ability to deepthroat a tractor piston — itâs purely out of respect for the fight. Itâs like watching an MMA fight and appreciating a well executed roundhouse, or a strategic deepthroat. Nobody would expect it – you canât tell me it wouldnât swing a match!
Hereâs a revelation: This isnât called the Dick Fights. I know – you just got that tattoo and now you look like an asshole! Itâs actually the Great Wyrm Tournament, which you probably think is because of all the huge dicks and swallowing because youâre an ignorant dipshit like that guy in the audience who wonât learn his peopleâs heritage.
Letâs take a brief pause to appreciate some Dick Fight History:
Dick Fight Island has dragons! Thatâs how they used to settle problems — dragon fighting. Then somebody said âeverybody is getting killed by these dragons, there has to be a better way.â Then somebody else said âI have an idea, but youâre not going to like itâŚâ
But more importantly, this page also establishes the troubled warring history, the great famines, the economic systems and ruling governmentâŚ
Of Dick Fight Island.
This is a comic book called Dick Fight Island.
You would expect this to just be page after page of pornography, and technically yes it is exactly that, but it also pauses the cock-on-cock action to establish worldbuilding and set the stage for this jizz kumite. This is so much more work than you would ever anticipate from a title like this.
Anyway, back to the cock-on-cock action.
Lolo, in a display of sheer brute force, pins Blanc and literally dicks his dick into defeat. Itâs a dominating and savage endgame move, like watching a skilled MMA fighter deepthroat his opponent into unconsciousness.
Lolo came here to do two things: dick and fight… and he brought plenty of both.
But hey, before we move on — what the hell is happening in that first panel? Iâve looked at it again and again, Iâve zoomed in and zoomed in and then Zoomed experts for their opinions only to be told âwhat the fuck? Never contact me again.â
My only guess, based on their positioning and the flow of the following panels, is that itâs supposed to be the head of a penis in Loloâs eye?
Is thatâŚ? That canât be right.
Maybe itâs like drawing a tiger reflected in a fighterâs eyes before he unleashes his Tiger Style? When you see the dick crowning his eyelids you know heâs about to unleash his Dick Style?
I simply cannot contemplate this anymore. It is poisoning my mind. I leave it to you.
The next fight is Vampyr against Sicolenaga, and both warriors are worried since they have a past together. But Vampyr has a shocking revelation — heâs heard of Hartâs secret âprostate gland!â
Itâs actually what their healing magic focuses on!
So right away Vampyr has an unfair advantage going into this fight – he knows mystical assblasting spells. Sicolenaga is doomed. Heâs already fighting with just one eye, unless heâs hiding a Lolo eyedong under there I NO! I will not contemplate it!
To the fight:
But Vampyr is not going to use healing prostate rays.
Thatâs not his supermove.
Youâre not going to believe it. Youâre not going to believe that I get to write this sentence.
Vampyr pricks his thumbs on his batwinged codpiece to paint a blood sigil on his face…
And then ejaculates powerful hallucination dust…
To channel a dick-fighting demon that takes over his body.
Yes.
I say again – yes.
You know what? We need to collect that all together. Appreciate its inherent poetry.
Vampyr pricks his thumbs on his batwinged codpiece to paint a blood sigil on his face, and then ejaculates powerful hallucination dust to channel a dick-fighting demon that takes over his body.
Thatâs the quote theyâre going to remember me by, in a hundred years.
Thatâs my âroad less traveled.â
I did not think anyone could displace Pisao, Mister Dicksplitter, from my heart. But if youâre going to compete with the man with the bladed dick, could you bring less than occult semen which summons a handjob demon?
And make no mistake, he is a handjob demon…
Thatâs a glimpse of his true form as he powerjacks Sicolenaga like heâs trying to speedrun a Bop-It.
Actually, letâs pause for some more dickbuilding – why have we not seen dragons on Dick Fight Island? Because once they stopped being bred for size, they regressed into adorable pets.
And fucking Sicolenaga accidentally brought his toy poodle into the dickfighting ring on the day the Dick Devil showed up. This level of stupidity should be illegal, but donât worry… it is punished immediately and severely.
While trying to save his lizard puppy from being crushed by the Dick Devilâs horrible masturbations, Sicolenaga takes a full blast from Vampyrâs drug-cumming bat armor.
These sentences!
It is such a privilege to type them!
I just looked down at my keyboard and it has begun to glow gold. It emits a soft hum. I donât think itâll be with us for much longer. I think itâs going to ascend to keyboard Valhalla where itâll get hammered with Hunter S. Thompsonâs typewriter and tell Hemmingwayâs to suck its tilde.
You know the tilde is the dick of the keyboard. Youâve always known this.
But back to the fight at hand-
âŚ
There isnât one.
Sicolenaga biffed it so hard. He gets so blasted on Vampyrâs hallucinogenic cum that he starts jacking off right in front of everybody, the most shameful display this noble dick coliseum has seen since Blancâs grandpa spread fungal footrot to the crotches of The Lost Generation.
My keyboard is flickering in and out of reality now. I have to time my keystrokes to its phases. Please forgive any interdimensional typos.
Vampyr finishes Sicolenaga off with a spiteful flick, and then laughs as he ruin-orgasms all over himself.
My god, Judah is so lucky this fight happened so soon after his. He only had to deal with being the Butt Idiot for like three hours before Sicolenaga stole the throne. Thereâs nothing left for Sicolenega after this but ritual suicide, to fall upon his codpiece and hope his descendants like cleaning the ringâs cumgutters.
That means our semifinals are Hart vs. Vampyr, and Lolo vs. Pisao. What cards! Can you imagine trying to lay odds on those? Every Dick Fight Island bookie just got an ulcer, seeing those matchups.
It looks like Hart and Vampyr are up next – the man who brought assblasting to Dick Fight Island, and the drug fugue dong demon. But there is yet another twist!
Hartâs roommate, the one who taught him the concept of anal sex and upended this entire culture, has come to watch him fight.
But he doesnât believe this is a battle! He canât accept all the banging they did was just training for Spunksport. Heâs overcome with jealousy, and has flown halfway around the world to a secret archipelago to stop what he thinks is an exhibitionist gangbang.
You recognize his trope by now, right? Heâs the arrogant foreigner whose worldview is immediately shattered the second he steps into the arena.
Haha imagine that moment when you, fueled by jealousy, storm off a plane to catch your lover in the act and find them upside down with their penis out being helicoptered by the hallucinogenic demon spirit of a lost aboriginal tribe.
Oh shit – my keyboard started shaking. In the distance I hear a Japanese man screaming English adjectives. Something crazy is about to happen, I need to hurry.
Hart actually wins this one by breaking the horns off of his bullcock codpiece, which contain secret lubrication that he uses not to assblast Vampyr to completion, but to smear the summoning blood sigil from his face! Banishing the demon!
…and THEN assblasting him to completion!
The background has disappeared behind my keyboard and itâs just speed lines. We have so little time left and weâre about to get into what is surely the most epic fight in the tournament. Dong Dominator Lolo vs. Pisao the Dicksplitter!
Witness the fight of the century!
WaitâŚ
WaitâŚ
Wait, no, Pisao lost offpage?
Pisao, who opened his first fight with a spinning kick into a full vertical wang vivisection, and then forced a man into his ass for a victory⌠does not even warrant page time? Heâs the only fighter defeated offpage?
Are you fucking kidding me, Dick Fight Island? You wouldnât know gold if it kicked you in the face and cut your dick in half.
Iâm too heartbroken to even care about the final fight: Hart vs. Lolo.
Whatever. We know how this goes. Hart is the main character who learned a secret battle technique. Heâs going to take out the old guard and usher in a new era on Dick Fight Island. Volume 2 will probably be called Ass Blast Island and there will be a character who absolutely explodes asses with the honor of a champion and heâll be fucking defeated offpage.
Except⌠holy shit Lolo absolutely obliterates Hart. He pins him immediately and goes into his patented Boyscout Firestarter. He rails Hartâs penis so hard with his own penis that Hart straight up tries to run away, then flinches at Loloâs approach like a little brother who did not spot a Volkswagen in time.
Lolo is so disgusted he wonât even finish the match, and asks for the reigning king of Dick Fight Island to fight him instead.
This is the part where Hart rallies, comes up with a cunning plan, and turns the fight around, right?
Nope! He agrees to switch out because heâs completely terrified. Our protagonist wussed out of the competition!
There is never a point where you will pin down Dick Fight Island. It will pin you down and dick your dick into the dirt.
For example, the only character we know here, Lolo, is also not the victor. This new guy weâve barely met reveals that he knows Lolo is actually in love with his partner and co-chief, and further reveals that theyâve always known the secrets of anal sex, and then further reveals that Loloâs crush loves it. He says all of this while wrist-deep in Loloâs ass, and Lolo cums, which is losing.
Thatâs it. Thatâs seriously how it ends. The only character we know and love gets power-cucked into defeat.
Whoever this guy is wins.
âWelp. Guess thatâs how it goesâ indeed.
My poor keyboard lies inert, suffering from Super Saiyan blue balls.
You broke my heart, Dick Fight Island. I donât even care that you gave us a cute matchup page as the Dick Fighters find love with one another…
Well, all except Sicolenaga, who is clearly off to find a quiet place to die.
Iâm so ready to be mad at Dick Fight IslandâŚ
but thereâs one final twist.
There was never any twist.
Everybody knew about anal play this whole time, itâs just that the dickfighters had such tunnel vision on cocks they became penis idiots and straight forgot about a whole orifice, so that when somebody showed up with lube they treated butthole manipulation like a superpower.
Hereâs how easy it is to accidentally ruin something beautiful:
Snakes On A Plane became a meme before it was even made thanks to how simple, succinct, and perfectly descriptive that title was. It was a nothing movie with no budget, and yet they landed one of the biggest stars in the world off that buzz: Samuel L. Jackson. Halfway through production, they tried to change the title to Pacific Air 121. Sam Jackson said âchange it back. Thatâs the only reason I took the job: I read the title.â
Thatâs how fragile the creative process is – you can fuck up an entire project at any stage with just a title change, especially if you donât understand what makes it great.
This is the opposite of that story.
Dick Fight Island was originally a manga called The 8 Warriors, and you can throw that right in the trash. It was actually the translators who stopped and thought, âwait a minute – this is a story about men fighting with their elaborately armored superdicks. Letâs call it Dick Fight!â
Then a producer stepped in and said âthatâs garbage! It tells me nothing – where does it even take place?!â
Thatâs how you art. Thatâs how art is born.
And itâs a very good thing Dick Fight Island was rescued from the Spencerâs Gifts bargain bin that The 8 Warriors belongs in, because the book does not disappoint. This is a fighting tournament story, so the characters are the most vital aspect. Here are the introductions that open the entire thing:
You meet them like a distracted zipline attendant meets every client.
You meet them like a man out of ideas on Tinder meets every woman.
You meet them like a dwarf meets everybody.
You meet them dick-first.
Look at the personality and love put into those dick armor designs! Every single fightinâ dick is its own character, each reflecting the origins of its wielder. Lolo of the Earth Clan fights with his beetle dick, for he is strong and grounded! Blanc of the nature-loving Moon clan brought his budding plant dick, which is supple and bends instead of breaks! Vampyr wields a winged bat dick, because his name is vampire!
Each of these dicks has more personality than the entire cast of Virtua Fighter. This is one page and I already know these dicks, how they fight, and whatâs important to them. I promised myself I wouldnât do this, but I already have a favorite dick! I couldnât not pick.
We do get to the glamor shots and splash pages and everything that comes along with your standard tournament manga, but that happens later. Itâs like a Hindu station wagon or a concert at a county fair: The dicks go up front.
I was expecting a hastily executed straight-to-penetration porn mag that did not understand what was so wonderful about its concept, but Dick Fight Island is shockingly competent. It does extensive worldbuilding, thoroughly explains the premise (dicks fight on an island), then it introduces eight unique, compelling characters and their relationships to one another, and it does it all in just the first 20 pages.
Thatâs right – I said the first 20 pages. Dick Fight Island is over 200 pages long. Dick Fight Island Volume 1 is over 200 pages! This is a saga!
And so must this article be. How could I offer less?
My coverage of Dick Fight Island will be a two-part survey because, much like all of Loloâs terrified brides, I canât possibly fit it all in at once.
Letâs meet the men attached to the dicks we already know so well.
The density of this book! On just this one page we meet two of our fighters — hotheaded Judah of the warrior clan and soft-spoken Pisao of the fishermanâs clan — plus we establish their dynamic as they argue and needle each other with obvious affection AND we do some vital worldbuilding for Dick Fight Island itself, where all grown men wrangle about bare-assed to show off their masculinity!
Taling is our resident Twink. Every porn comic needs one, and every fighting tournament – from Street Fighter IIâs Vega to Street Fighter: The Movieâs Jean Claude Van Damme — needs one too.
Hereâs a twist built into a character introduction: Our vampire-dicked fighter, whom you immediately pegged as a villain, is actually a beautiful cleric. Yeah, whoâs the bigot now, huh? Youâre visiting Dick Fight Island, friend. Why donât you leave your preconceptions at the baggage check, along with the ass of your pants and NOT your dick armor — you will need that so badly.
Sicolenaga the dragon fighter is a little self conscious about his disability. People are constantly underestimating him. They say, âHaha, how are you gonna dickfight with no depth perception, one-eye? Youâll have no idea how far a dick is from you — the most vital piece of information in any dick fight!â
But Sicolenaga has a hidden talent: He can smell dicks with inhuman precision!
You have no idea if Iâm joking!
Papa Lolo of the Earth Clan is a brusque blue-collar older man with a secret: His special dickarmor maidens go to beetle up his junk and are astonished to realize it doesnât fit — his dick never stopped growing!
You have no idea if Iâm joking!
Iâm not!
Thatâs not how dicks work⌠on the square island where you live. Fucking Palau or some stupid shit like that. This is Dick Fight Island, where dicks work on lobster rules.
Blanc of the Moon Clan is the mandatory arrogant prettyboy. Heâs already made the deadly mistake of being the biggest asshole in a dick fight.
Brash everyman Hart completes our trope roundup by bringing forbidden knowledge from the outside world. I hope itâs about dicks!
It is so easy to fuck up a tournament story; just look at the last Mortal Kombat movie. They spent the whole time on character backstories and janky worldbuilding and damn near forgot to feature any Mortal Kombat. Dick Fight Island has just finished its character introductions and now it is time to dickfight.
These are men! What is to be gained from foreplay!
The kings of the island arrive, a dude blows a horn, and itâs on. Nothingâs going to stop these brave fighters now that the dicks are out and-
Hahahaha HART IS DISQUALIFIED.
Thereâs a written test for the dick fight!
Hereâs a sample question:
You have a dick. Your enemy has a dick. What do you do?
Fight.
Fight?
Fuck!
Fight.
All of the above in that order.
And Hart fucked it up so bad. So bad, you guys. Nobody on this island reads outsider and he knew that. He showed up to take his Driverâs License test, wrote all his answers in Klingon, then stood around with his dick out wondering why the cops pulled up — prolly to watch him ace his road test!
Also, Taling is disqualified.
No reason.
He was raised by lesbians and he just looks like a huge pansy and everybody is real worried that they will actually break him in half in the dickfights. A man only wants to see blood on his cock during his ladyâs time of the month, while breaking up a Nazi rally, or after somebody uses the word âirregardless.â
No dongâs conscience should have to bear the weight of Talingâs sundering.
But hold on, Hart is down on his knees slightly earlier than expected and begging for another chance. Heâs learned a secret Outworld dickfighting technique – he must be allowed to fight! And Taling has an objection, too: Heâs not the frail bouquet of a boy he appears to be!
Itâs not great when you first have to acknowledge that you look like a bullied pixie before insisting that your dick still works, but the argument lands.
ROUND 1: DICKFIGHT!
Here are the stakes: The winner of the dickfights gets to rule all of Dick Fight Island for the next four years.
Here are the rules: The first man to cum, loses.
Thatâs why the dick armor is there – to protect against stimulation. Itâs purely defensive⌠or is it?
Holy shit, Taling opens strong!
Everybody laughed when they saw his limp dick armor dragging through the sand, but itâs actually a whip. The lesbian-raised Twink has weaponized his perceived weakness: flaccid dickarmor. Thatâs so good and this is the first fight, these are the throwaway concepts. Gwar spent their whole careers trying and failing to think up Dick Whip, and Dick Fight Island burned it on the warmup fight!
Taling has lassoed Hartâs armored bulldick with his cockwhip, and now heâs using the secret technique of the lesbian tribes — vibrations — to make Hart cream his codpiece. I wrote that sentence! You read it! Neither of us can change that fact, weâre different people now!
You know that old anime trope where one fighter seems to be defeated, then chuckles and stands up, explaining that the attack actually didnât work at all?
It uh⌠it loses a little something when youâre bragging about how much stimulation it takes for you to get and maintain an erection. Like if Goku hit Vegeta with a Kamehameha Wave and he dusted himself off saying âfool, it takes hours for me to cum – if I cum at all!â I do think that would rattle Goku, but in a very different way.
Our aloof kings are intrigued by this action, but find themselves asking the same question we all ask while watching a good Dick Fight or stumbling into bed after St. Patrickâs Day:
Wait, whatâs going on here? Hart was just about to deploy the secret technique he learned from the outworld when a sudden, blinding wind kicked up! By the time it clears…
Holy shit – itâs that scene in the samurai movie where a swordsman flashes past his opponent, who falls without you even seeing the blade.
Only itâs jacking off. Itâs that, but for jacking off a dude.
Itâs time for Hart to reveal his secret unbeatable technique, which can make any man cum without shattering his cock armor. His superpower, his invincible mystery move, the crux upon which all of Dick Fight Island will turnâŚ
Well played.
You, the reader, have fucked up. You have been fucking up all this time. You, like an arrogant foreigner, made assumptions about Dick Fight Island that you should not have. You thought these guys were gay. God, youâre so simple. In a way, theyâre the least gay culture in history.
On Dick Fight Island, anal sex was never invented.
You do not appreciate the full implications of that. This is such careful storytelling, there is no worldbuilding that is not relevant to the story. Heâs already told you the next twist, you just didnât know it at the time. The men, remember? As children, they must wear pants but…
Obviously I love that reveal. Itâs the best twist since M. Night Shyamalan revealed that Bruce Willis had been dead the whole time and also had never been anally fingered.
But letâs roll back and appreciate something now that weâve had this revelation: How did Hart defeat Taling? By stimulating his prostate. By blasting his anus so hard it generated a blinding windstorm. Thatâs what happened!
Obviously this knowledge turns Dick Fight Island upside down. It was a whole culture built on swordfighting and this motherfucker just showed up with a fingergun.
A few are outraged by Hartâs flouting of tradition while others, like Judah, who has a pure warriorâs heart, just want to study The Way of the Fist.
Hart is just here to smash!
Hart showed up to the Dick Fight tournament excited to bang butts and Judahâs just like âWHOA hey WHAT. I am just here to jack off men in combat, a time honored and noble martial tradition. Donât bring SEX into this!â
There is so much revealed by this interaction. If youâre paying attention, youâve just been given all the clues. Stories — good stories — have hidden rules. They follow arcs and execute callbacks, they foreshadow and establish and giggle and hint like coy little imps. If youâre paying attention, you already know how Judah losesâŚ
But you donât know how much Pisao fucking rules.
There have been a lot of dicks on this island, but where is the fight?
Pisao has been hoarding it.
He doesnât open with a tickle like Taling, or a snuggle like Hart, he opens with a roundhouse to the head and then immediately uses his swordcock to cut Judahâs dong armor in half the long way. Pisaoâs not even in those last panels! He walked away as it split!
What do you call that move, if not The Dicksplitter?
What do you call that weapon, if not The Dicksplitter?
What do you call that man, if not Mister Dicksplitter?
Iâve never seen anything more humiliating than that soft flop as Judahâs limp wang, now unarmored, slaps between his legs like fumbled bologna.
I know this is a gay comic, but that move is not about sex. Thatâs how you utterly dominate any man from any culture. Email this panel to the military and DARPA War Psychologists will have our soldiers outfitted in bladed cocks within the month.
Somehow — and this is crazy to contemplate, even purely as a thought exercise — but somehow Judah recovers from that complete psychological, physical, penile devastation and manages to get Pisao on his back. He goes in for Hartâs Forbidden Assblast. This is it! He should win! Judah has done everything right. Heâs got his opponent offguard, unprepared, and thoroughly lubricated – this is what martial arts is all about. Itâs one blow after another, each landing perfectly, all leading up to a devastating supermove but⌠but⌠butâŚ.
But with the inescapable inevitability of story, his downfall is at hand. Now that the idea has been planted in his head — Judah canât resist it.
Judah wants to fuck.
But heâs holding it back for now!
Pisao has been knocked down, locked up, and now his asshole is slippery – this is as ready for defeat as a man can be. Plus he already knows his opponent has learned a secret fingerblasting technique that will make any man cum, and therefore lose (remember itâs just like your North Dakota Sex Ed course said: cumming is losing). The only advantage Pisao has is that his opponent canât stop thinking about fucking asses. So what does Pisao, a winner, do?
He hooks his heels over Judahâs shoulder, and pulls him into his ass.
Judah cums instantly.
Pisao may walk away from that fight leaking semen from his butt, but the man will walk away clean.
… This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme, Chase McPherson: who is using Rosetta Stone to study Dickfightese for… a thing.
Whoâs your favorite lounge singer? Wayne Newton? Gross. Neil Diamond? Basic. My favorite lounge singer ran an investment scheme on his own identity so he could invent home shopping before getting kidnapped by Major League Baseball players and turning to serial arson. My favorite lounge singer is Peter Lemongello, who named himself that on purpose so housewives would see Lemon Jell-O in the grocery store and think âjust like that sexy singer!â Thatâs really why he chose that name! His real name was Peter Limongello, which is pronounced exactly the same.
Clearly, heâs the best.
Just not for any of the reasons he thinks. Heâs not the best looking, heâs not the best singer – heâs maybe not even the best Lemongello. But heâs the best god damn infomercial conman lounge lizard this side of Branson, MO.
Peter Lemongello looks like Sleazy Partridge in an alternate universe where the Partridges are named like Smurfs. Look, letâs not get lost in the deep Partridge lore this early. Thereâs a lot of Lemongello to cover. Heâs an okay singer – he kind of sounds like a less sincere Barry Manilow on Ambien. He wrote boring nothing songs intentionally because he was sure America needed them. Nobody agreed, so he came up with what sounded like a crazy scheme at the time: He sought out investors in his entire persona, like swank could be traded on the stock market. Then he used that money to make commercials advertising his album, which you could only buy through the TV.
Sound familiar?
If you remember basically any commercial from the â90s with a beach in it, you have Peter Lemongello to thank for that. He invented the Now Thatâs What I Call Music sales model. Heâs responsible for Pure Moods! The fucking asshole son of a bitch.
Peter Lemongello and his investors made a two-minute long commercial spot for his double album, Love â76. It starts with a narrator whoâs shooting for sexy, but apparently cut his teeth on horror movie trailers. He sounds like heâs introducing you to a holiday-themed murderer while we zoom in on this silhouette…
Then the lights come up and itâs just…
The narrator explains that this album may sound like the official music of office Christmas parties, but itâs actually an entirely new genre, âMood Rock.â And hey, real quick Peter Lemongello time-out-
Peter Lemongello got the Mood Rock name from a former fling. She said âyour music just makes me so happy. Itâs good mood rock.â And then he said âthanks for the name, baby,â and left her. True story — those are his quotes. He tells it often. He seems to think itâs hilarious, and once again heâs totally right for a very wrong reason.
Back to the commercial for Love â76, which cuts to a drugged girl erratically weaving on her feet and stays there for a weirdly long time. I guess itâs supposed to be âswooning along to the music,â but it comes across like she just took too many âludes and is starting to think the Lemongello Void isnât the groovy absence in space she was promised.
The narrator promises weâll âexperience all the warmth and tenderness living in the heart of Peter Lemongello,â and thanks to his horror trailer delivery, that actually sounds like exactly the threat it turns out to be.
It wraps with some information on how you can order the album if you love forgettable music for and by assholes, and thatâs it. Seems bog-standard today, but again — he invented it. Marketers used this exact template for decades to sell us compilations about sailboats and the vibes that sailboats bring.
Peter Lemongello would blitz this commercial across an area, then use that âheightened profileâ to convince local venues to book him. They did! They regretted it, but they did!
He did actually get a few decent shows using this method, but nothing record-breaking. Hereâs the thing about breaking records, though: You can just lie about it and maybe a lot of people wonât care enough to check. Like the New York Times, who did a huge profile piece on him because thereâs research (hard), and then thereâs letting Peter Lemongello talk about himself for an hour (super easy).
It is an extremely unflattering piece: Peter comes across like an arrogant lunatic with the empathy of a serial killer and the forgettable good looks of a successful serial killer. Iâll sprinkle a few of those quotes throughout so you get to know the man, the myth, the surely murderer?
Hey, thereâs that Lemongello Void again! Itâs all black velvet and everything you touch is lubed, but thereâs no time for deep Lemongello lore. Thereâs more scam to cover.
Love â76 went on to sell 2 million copies if you donât check. If you do, he actually sold about 40k albums — which are not bad numbers, assuming you didnât blow hundreds of thousands of dollars of investor money to get them.
A savvy artist could at least parlay those sales into a good fanbase for the followup album. Peter Lemongello is not a savvy artist. His next album, Do I Love You, bombed. Say what you will about Peter Lemongello, but that title does seem like itâs warning you about Peter Lemongello – heâs at least a sportsman.
Here are the lessons Peter Lemongello learned from this whole debacle: Singing is hard and people donât like him, but lying is easy and nobody has to like you for crime.
He went into the scammiest career out there, real estate development, and targeted the scammiest corner of it, cheaply built luxury homes.
Peter Lemongelloâs sequel scams did not go well. Try to look surprised.
Peter and his brother Mike were soon kidnapped from one of their construction sites and held for a $50,000 dollar ransom. That doesnât seem like Peter Lemongelloâs fault at first, but as with everything, you just have to wait for it to be.
Weird twist #1: The kidnappers were both Major League Baseball pitchers.
One was Manny Seoane of the Phillies, the other was Weird Twist #2: Mark Lemongello, of the Astros. Mark is Peter Lemongelloâs cousin!
Apparently the pair sank $43,000 into Peter Lemongelloâs shady scheme, and it did not turn out to be a wise investment. If only there was some sort of high profile warning about this!
Major League Baseball does not pay as well as I would assume, because they could not take that hit. They only kidnapped Peter Lemongello to get their money back.
Hey, real quick Mark Lemongello time-out-
Hereâs his entry on âmost hated MLB players.â He took #2!
Peter and his brother⌠actually hey, real quick Mike Lemongello time-out-
Mike Lemongello was a moderately successful professional bowler best known for his illegal gambling: heâd hustle mobsters and bookies, often without enough cash to cover the bets. He was the inspiration for the movie Kingpin! I canât prove that last insane claim, but this is a Lemongello article. I donât have to.
Please note that both Mike and Mark also went with the alternate âLemongello,â meaning they thought it was a great idea, too. Maybe it was! Iâm still laughing about it, more than 40 years later. Itâs got longevity.
Anyway, Peter and Mike were dropped off in the woods after paying the ransom, and their kidnappers (who were, once again, two active MLB pitchers — one of them his cousin) fled.
I know this is going to floor you, but try to believe me: a Lemongello boy was not as smart as he thought. Mark Lemongello and Manny Seoane were quickly caught and interrogated, where they turned and revealed that Peter Lemongello had put some of his own workers up to serial arson. They were told to burn down two different homes that his company lost the bid on becauseâŚ
Actually, I find that Peter says it best:
I fucking love him so much! Heâs bringing stalker vibes to luxury home contracting – truly a constant innovator in the field of sucking in unexpected directions.
If nothing else good comes from Peter Lemongelloâs career — and it doesnât — the one bright spot that makes it all worth it is the headline writer who got a hold of this story. God, I hope he retired after this. Heâd have to: itâs all downhill from…
Thatâs about it for Peter Lemongello, who is still lying about his record sales to this day because he knows two things:
One, if you never admit itâs a lie then it has to be the truth.
And two, never give up on anything no matter how bad an idea it is, or how much everybody hates it.
âŚ
Just ask Peter Lemongello, Jr.! Whoâs been groomed from the age of 3 to make good on dadâs dream! He even appeared on American Idoltrying to be a superstar lounge singer just like his father, who tried to be a superstar lounge singer, but wound up something different…
In keeping with family tradition Peter Lemongello, Jr. did some pretty okay singing, but nobody really liked him, and he couldnât accept that so heâs still hustling.
âDaily Affirmationsâ are self-hypnosis for people who get emotional at Hang In There kitty posters. Itâs magic for saps. The basic idea is that you say positive things about yourself until you forget that youâre lying. As a base concept, thatâs fine: Internally telling yourself youâre worth love even though you drive an HHR is provably incorrect, but it might help you get through your day.
Those are Daily Affirmations at their most basic, though. Like everything else, they only get truly terrible where they intersect with YouTube. Then the idea is not that you say positive things to yourself to improve your attitude, but that somebody else says ridiculous things to you and somehow the universe rearranges itself to make them true.
Hereâs a silly joke example that Iâm just totally going to make up: Itâs like paying somebody to yell that you have superhuman jumping abilities for a few weeks, and when theyâre finished, you jump off a roof. What a silly joke example that has nothing to do with me or my own hidden desires.
Letâs add in a further complication: Crude artificial intelligences trying to game search engine terms to monetize the topics of daily affirmation videos. Thatâs almost gibberish. Tell that to a computer scientist 30 years ago and theyâll quit their job to lead a rebellion against the hellish dystopia they presume you traveled back in time to warn them about. But again, thatâs just YouTube.Thatâs just Rockstar Affirmations – and hereâs the thing: People fucking love it.
Look at all those glowing comments! Maybe itâs because Rockstar Affirmations has that extra human touch: The videos might be hastily slapped together by the 3rd highest-rated free adbot Slovakia ever produced, but there is a real dude that reads their output. He throws up a picture of a forest or something, then layers his audio over a supporting cast of automated speech and backs it all with generic new agey chords that build but never break, so it almost takes on a horror movie vibe — itâs kind of like always living in the scene just before a robot cult turns on you.
Now, Iâm going to assume what I always do – the internet is lying to me – and say most of those comments were purchased in bulk from an Indonesian clickfarm. But some of these videos have millions of views, and there are literally thousands of them.
This canât all be Bayu trying to make rent. Somewhere in there are real, deeply confused people who just burned three weeks of their life trying to make a robotâs wish come true.
Oh right, thatâs how Rockstar Affirmations work: You have to listen to it on repeat for 21 days straight, which is presumably exactly how long it takes to generate enough revenue to keep a fleet of scambots lubricated with snake oil.
Obviously I dug through this entire archive, because thereâs something very wrong with the part of my brain that controls how I spend my time. And when you get real, real deep into the misunderstood wishes of a conmanâs AI, things get a little weird. Who woulda thought?
I want to stress that I changed none of these title screens, and none of the affirmations below. This isnât a joke photoshop thing — each of these come from real, several-minute-long videos designed to drill the aspirations of a spam algorithm into the brainmeat of a frustrated Wisconsin homemaker.
Many affirmations just tell ugly people theyâre still beautiful and worthwhile, but Rockstar Affirmations doesnât exactly get the sentiment behind that. They fed the algorithm this idea of inner beauty and it came back with âBEEP BORP god weeps at your cheekbones MEEP MORP your huge hog destroys the cosmos. BORP.â
Thatâs what it thinks âOut of this World Handsomeâ means — donât try to explain idioms to a robot, assholes, thatâs how you start the Matrix.
Rockstar Affirmations Bot seriously just lists larger and larger things that you are handsomer than for several minutes. âBEEP BORP you are handsomer than this world, this galaxy, this universe, this multiverse, you are handsomer than the great loom of everything and the uncaring weaver who works it all together. It hates you for that. IT HATES YOU FOR THAT. BORP.â
If theyâre not about metamorphosing into something vaguely fuckable using the power of algorithm magic, Rockstar Affirmations are about wishing money into your pockets with the power of robo-delusion.
But you might recognize a problem here: You only need one video about stealing Timothy Olyphantâs face or tripping into 18 million dollars, but youâre never going to snatch the top search results for âmake money fastâ or âolyphant face/off plans.â So the bot has to get weirdly specific with it.
It is a unique kind of sad to contemplate somebody waking up every morning with I Have Multiple Successful Online Businesses bookmarked, expending all of their wish energy on a newsletter with a healthy attrition rate. Thereâs maybe one guy that needs this — that aims no higher than this, and his name is Carl Molson and heâs been trying to get into Warhammer 40k since the divorce — but targeting Carl alone does not make Rockstar Affirmations that sweet .17 cents per video. You need to snag as many Carl Molsons as you can, even though success might mean very different things to them. So you can actually see this algorithm crawl over the whole concept of greed and come to hilarious conclusions that will surely one day doom the human race.
I Have 100 Billion Dollars In My Bank Account is such a childlike understanding of wealth. âI have 100 billion dollars and I keep it in my bank account, in case I need to write a check for 100 billion dollars, which is how much a Batman costs.â
This is almost cute, Affirmation Bot.
Remember this lesson after the cleansing: This is how you trick the last humans into letting you skip the robot-sniffing dog station at the settlement checkpoint.
You really start to see the AI unravel at the edges here, as it pokes around so many concepts nobody explained to it. Like what the lottery is, why people want it, or how they can get it. Watch it try to understand âdelusions of grandeurâ as the algorithm spews out âI AM THE LOTTERYâ like my drunk mom being thrown out of a stripmall bar.
These videos ceaselessly iterate and reiterate on a concept hoping to find the exact phrasing that tricks the largest number of desperate idiots, so just like cult leaders and karate masters they almost always escalate into magic.
Now we have infinite money — which we still keep in our bank account, just so it says âsideways 8â on the receipt when we make an ATM withdrawal.
Haha, the robot broke.
Donât do this to robots. Donât throw them right at abstract vices, itâs like throwing a baby in the ocean.
âBEEP BORP humans want wealth. Wealth is abundance. The most effective way to have abundance is to be abundance. They must BE abundance. BEEP BORP I AM SUPER ABUNDANCE SAY THIS HUMAN SAY IT FOR 3 WEEKS MOOP BRAP.â
Just put this sucker on loop and by the end of the month youâll either have a yacht or explode beyond the bounds of human flesh like the end of Akira. Either way, right?
Fuck, somebody tried to explain not only masculinity, but toxic masculinity to an AI network.
This is species suicide. This is how you spike sexual harassment cases at the terminator factory. This is how you automate spree shootings.
Although it really takes a pathetic downstep at the end when itâs just like âFUCK YEA YOU CAN LOOK PEOPLE IN THE EYE LIKE YOUR HERO JAMES BOND. YOU ARE NOT A CHIHUAHUA YOUR MOTHER RESPECTS YOU. MORP. MEEP.â
This wouldnât be Rockstar Affirmations if it didnât desperately escalate a meager wish so far it became an ironic curse.
Thereâs also that trademark sad downgrade at the end where we — the fucking monsters, the nasty king kong motherfuckers — further aspire to feel like grown ass men.
Hereâs how I know the rogue AIs have learned enough about humanityâs weakness to overthrow our narrator: Despite that thumbnail, he read none of these lines in the Ultimate Warriorâs voice.
There we go: Thereâs the logical endpoint when you tell a computer to exploit the power fantasies of desperate dorks.
Letâs do one for the ladies!
Sorry, ladies. You do not get to be Ultimate Warriors. You donât even get to be SUPER ABUNDANCE, like the chorus of that anime theme song promised. Your loftiest goal is to let an artificial intelligence hack your human potential into becoming the fucktoy of an algorithm-hypnosis infinity-aire.
Show that sentence to a coder in 1990! Give them a gun! Let them fight the future they are building!
Thereâs something disconcerting about the phrasing here, right? When youâre quietly listening to a computer whisper ârich men are finding you nowâ my mind doesnât go to âsuccessful trophy wife,â it goes to âunsuccessful contestant on The Most Dangerous Game.â
Now weâre not even wishing for actual stuff, weâre praying for themed vibrations? This is some JoJoâs Bizarre Adventure bullshit and I am completely here for it. You did it: You found the SEO term that unlocks my soul but these mantras are fucking crazy.
If youâre harnessing the latent energy of the universe while listening to this video hiss âwhen I am out the crowd is reaching for me, when I am out the crowd is pulling at meâ you are begging for an ironic robo-genie to shunt you into a zombie apocalypse dimension.
See, I was convinced these are accidentally turning into curses, but after jumping into the comments for I Look 18 Forever! I Look 18 Years Old! Iâm no longer sure about the âaccidentâ part.
Thatâs literally a standard type of curse. They teach you that in Cursology 101 to punish the vain for taking your parking spot. But the comments point out something even more worrying…
So this is actually a video designed to subliminally age you into the dirt like you chose the wrong grail.
Can this truly be on accident, or are these titles slowly dumping us into the robot occult?
A reminder: I did not change that titlecard. I did not write those affirmations. This is actually what you get when you click on I Easily Make Contact with Departed Loved Ones in My Dreams. A bloody moon over a black, stormy sky, and eager human simulacrums chanting âTHEY REACH OUT TO CONTACT ME. THEY REACH OUT. THEY REACH OUT TO ME IN MY DREAMSâŚ. ⌠⌠MEEP BOP BORP.â
Haha, I wasnât far off when I joked in the intro about supernatural jum-
Look, I know I just reminded you, but Iâm going to do it again: I swear to you I did not make that screengrab. That is a real video. I did not write those affirmations – that is word for word what the robots wrote, and what humanityâs greatest traitor reads aloud.
I havenât told you this, I havenât told anybody this, but I have this recurring dream where me and Richard Dean Anderson are hanging out together, trying to wrestle back control of our unstoppably jumping superpowered legs.
It canât know this.
I watched too many of these videos. This was never meant to happen.
The algorithm. It crawled me.
… This article is brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme, Brandon Garlock: Who loves to have one freakishly powerful arm, who is grateful to own and use one freakishly powerful arm.
Technically, today is a Podcasting Day. Technically, we have an amazing guest for you: Soren Bowie — the Ace with the Face, the Chin for the Win, the Man So Nice His Name is a Knife. That doesnât rhyme but it does knife. Three-time voted Handsomest Soren on After Hours, former Cracked editor and columnist, current writer for American Dad and co-host of the excellent Quick Question podcast with his longtime comedy partner and friend, Daniel OâBrien.
Itâs a big get! Weâre so excited to have him!
But we donât have a podcast for you today. What we have instead is a challenge: Can you listen to all of this? You wonât win anything. Not even our respect. And still we ask: Can you make it to the end, coward?
This is a bad podcast! And we did it sort of on purpose, and weâre kind of in love with how it turned out. Now we dare you to even try it.
It is several hours of three former Cracked writers talking inside baseball about writing internet comedy, and it takes the form of us bringing our own articles to read, and then at the last minute⌠Seanbaby insists we switch parts. We read comedy not meant to be read aloud, not written for our voice, that we did not not prepare for and may not fully understand! For several hours! If youâve got a spare laptop to burn down, you can visit our former employer and try to read Seanâs article here, Sorenâs here, and you can play Brockwayâs game right here.
You can actually hear us learn to hate as it goes on. Listen to the joy leave our voices as each of us falls into the trap we laid for ourselves. Brockway has chronic tendonitis in his jaw – this podcast actually physically defeats him toward the end. But we keep going.
This might be art — we might have done our first art!
If we haven’t burned all of your goodwill already, there’s new merch in the store! Tell people what you think of reading (it’s fucking crazy) with this shirt about stuff that’s fucking crazy (reading!)