Author: Robert Brockway

Categories
FUCKING DAY

The Several Opportunities For Sex Of Black Scorpion

When the internet was still in its early days, we had not perfected the fine art of masturbating to nerd shit. The will was always there, but the technology simply hadn’t caught up yet. While you waited twenty minutes for a low resolution screenshot of topless Teri Hatcher to download, you might just lose patience and settle for cranking one out to the spandex asses of shows like Black Scorpion. 

Black Scorpion aired on the Sci-fi Channel, and IMDB describes it as… “A female “BATMAN” with a strong story, intriguing characters, good action pacing… and several opportunities for sex.”

Several opportunities! 

It doesn’t promise sex, but there are definitely moments sex could have been had if characters were so inclined! 

Look, I’ve got another three hours before this zip file of Gillian Anderson BEST Sexy Shots (36) finishes downloading, so let us study… 

We are zero seconds in and already I can see I’ve fucked up. You might not know who Roger Corman is, and that’s difficult to explain. He makes sexy movies, but so badly that you’re always too distracted by his inept framing choices to get off to them. By the time you notice tits are out and get ready, Roger Corman has already moved on to shooting mismatched coverage of a cardboard robot and a man with too much mustache. Roger Corman movies are how Christians imagined pornography in the 1960s. Roger Corman is like a talentless Stephen Sommers if Stephen Sommers liked tits about 87% more than he already does. And Stephen Sommers likes tits! Roger Corman is like if Michael Bay got exactly the amount of respect his talent warranted. Plus this is Roger Corman PRESENTS. This show just has his endorsement. It’s like Carl’s Jr. recommending a specific racoon to eat. You’re getting the garbage that garbage likes. 

Black Scorpion isn’t based on a comic — it’s not actually based on anything but wild misunderstandings. Here’s Black Scorpion’s origin story as told by the pre-credit roll:

This is why you always explain the moral to children after the story. Kids are stupid and impressionable and if you don’t carefully deconstruct the metaphor you’ll wind up with a daughter dressed like a Scorpion, firing Scorpion themed machine guns from her modified Corvette Stingray, which she calls the Scorpion-mobile.

Damn it, you see what I mean? We came here to ogle ‘90s asses like it’s Tae Bo day at Bally Total Fitness, but Roger Corman’s influence sucks so much that I haven’t even mentioned the protagonist of this show makes her very first appearance dressed as a hooker.

I guess that’s pretty sexy. I mean, hookers do not typically wear two belts as a shirt — that’s more of a professional wrestler thing — but we’re not here to nitpick. I will point out that it’s not typically the goal of a sex worker to keep her boobs as tightly bound and far apart as possible, but I have to give Black Scorpion points: This is technically an opportunity for sex. It’s not a good one, and nobody takes it, but fucking was briefly on the table here.

Black Scorpion’s real name is Darcy Walker, and she’s supposed to be a serious police officer, but even on duty she only wears the kind of tamely sexy pencil dresses that shoot for femme fatale but wind up more “date night at a steakhouse.” Although look, there is something to the careful deliberateness of her transformation sequence that speaks of sex work. It’s like watching a dominatrix clock in for her shift. Her professional disinterest in doing it is definitely doing it for me:

Hold up, let’s pause to explain her powers: There are none. Let’s resume. 

That transformation sequence is so clearly magical it’s actually strange that she’s not spinning and yelling broken english while she does it, but no — the show insists Black Scorpion just has cool technology like Batman. But while Batman uses his tech companies and billions of dollars to create his gadgets, Darcy Walker uses Argyle:

Argyle would be the best if he didn’t suck so hard. He owns a run-down mechanic shop, has no money or educational background, and is very casual about inventing Black Scorpion’s technology which “rearranges atoms” to do “whatever the fuck.”  

Here’s the exposition for that Black Scorpion transformation sequence above: 

Argyle: “Hey if I can rearrange the atoms in your car, why not your clothes?” 

Darcy: “How much do I owe you?” 

She actually gets out her checkbook to write a personal check for magic. 

And his very next line after establishing he’s the single greatest scientist in human history?

Argyle: “Hey, no charge, if it wasn’t for you busting me I’d still be in jail with the rest of my gang.” 

His gang. 

Of 47-year-old eccentric scientists? 

Of middle-aged fabric lovers who can twist spacetime to their whims? 

What the fucking fuck is that, show? I know this was the ‘90s and there were two roles for black male actors — ‘Gang Member’ or ‘Magic Negro’ — but somehow it’s worse that you chose ‘both.’

Black Scorpion has the worst origin story ever written, and a superhero named Black Condor was just “raised by birds.” Black Scorpion did not suffer a curse from a scorpion god, no sting from a radioactive scorpion, no getting struck by lightning while drinking Scorpion brand malt liquor — she’s just a cop that busted a really smart black guy who could rearrange reality and then forced him to make her a space-warping thong. 

Aw man, it happened again. I forgot we were here to smack it like it’s 2001 — which is to say we spend a long time looking for wank material and then give up and settle for an episode of Charmed. Let’s get back to business with another of Darcy Walker’s sexy outfits:

Every time we see Darcy in her off-time, she’s dressed in workout gear. But her workout gear consists of baggy trunks and a generous tanktop, complete with sweat towel. And she’s doing a move I know all too well: The “this bar stool is an awkward height for leaning, I wish I would have pulled it out from under the counter before cramming myself in this weird gap and just kind of hovering around the conversation looking for safe landing spots for my feet and hands.” 

I would laud the show for its realism here — that is exactly how a human would dress for exercise and then behave if you unexpectedly barged in their house while they were exercising — but the way the camera lingers and frames her body in these shots it’s clear we’re supposed to be ogling this. Ogling what, Roger Corman-endorsed director Gwyneth Gibby, whose most notable other works include “Black Scorpion Returns” and “Sting of the Black Scorpion”? That uncomfortably bent knee? That weird wrist position? She doesn’t look like she wants to fuck; she looks like she regrets inviting the Cutco salesman in.

Dammit! Somebody set this masturbation to Nightmare Difficulty and here I am trying to solo it flawless. I’m in over my head. Let’s stop looking for Black Scorpion’s “several opportunities for sex” and throw it all the way back to oldschool Xena rules: Pause the tape during fight scenes hoping for an ass shot that doesn’t look like abstract pottery.

Nope. 

That ain’t it.

Those lines are a stunning example of the Chilean late Art Nouveau movement, but it’s barely a butt.

Pausing is the wrong move. Let’s look at a fight in action: 

It’s clear this is in the neighborhood of sexy. It once let sexy house-sit and now it can’t get the smell out of the drapes. Like I recognize the attempt here: lots of needless shots of buns-up climbing, a weird double-clothesline only there to highlight cleavage, followed by an ass somersaulting away, but it’s all too clumsy and disorienting. This isn’t Black Widow leg-grappling Scarlet Witch so that for a second it looks like they’re scissoring — this is like trying to ogle an introductory ballet class: It’s mostly just people discovering they can’t move like that and then falling over.

I give up on Black Scorpion. Maybe she isn’t even supposed to be the sexy focal point. It’s always the villains, right? Who’s our Harley Quinn?

Great. 

That’s Firearm. He looks like a cybergoth making fun of football. He looks like a drunk mother forgot about the costume contest so a sad child had to tape a Predator costume together out of hockey gear and lingerie. He stands like he’s been pushed into the frame after saying “no way in shit am I ‘just hitting my mark,’ Sharon; you promised I could sign off on the costume first.”

Although, I’ve got to say, he moves well.

I’m not going to pretend this is my first time masturbating to a haphazard Borg cosplayer learning to breakdance. But god damn it, I was hoping I’d already had my last.

Here, you all need to go now. I’ll let General Stryker see you out. 

Categories
UPSETTING DAY

Gary Busey Pet Judge 🌭

Things are getting dire in the streaming era. Nearly everyone has their own streaming service. I do. It’s called Brok and so far I only have the rights to rebroadcast a Slovakian public access documentary about tainted wells and every single episode of Joey. I’ve made eighteen dollars this month from ads assuring my viewers that discount tire companies are here for you during These Uncertain Times. There are too many baskets and not enough dicks, I guess is what I’m saying here. There’s just not enough quality programming out there to fill all the services started by the shitty sons of sketchy Russian millionaires. Even Amazon Prime is having troubles, which I assume from watching their new series, Gary Busey: Pet Judge.

Gary Busey moderates funny pet-related disputes in a mock Reality TV parody of The People’s Court, and if you recognize every part of that description as wildly outdated, well then I’m sorry you didn’t get that job as head of programming for Amazon Prime Video. If you made this show fifteen years ago people would have said “really? A People’s Court reference? That is so fifteen years ago. Now please get out of the way — I have to ride my pocket bike to a Franz Ferdinand concert and I’m already late because of that flash mob pillow fight. Poker will never not be cooooool!”

Let’s watch it anyway. There’s a plague. The fuck else are you doing?

Gary Busey is, as always, a Greyhound station at 2AM:

And every case is an excuse for aging improv actors to demonstrate why they failed that MADtv audition.

Gary Busey: Pet Judge owes about half of its comedic stylings to Best In Show, and the other half to Tim and Eric — the two properties responsible for more damage to comedy than Borat. Don’t get me wrong: Best in Show and Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! were both great, but they taught a generation of aspiring comics that anyone can be funny without telling jokes, and then those comedians spent the next decade inventing new ways to prove that wasn’t true. Now everyone that’s not sure where to start with this whole “funny” thing does this:

Dude looks like he’s attending a Halloween party as ‘Misremembered Napoleon Dynamite Reference.’ He is here to be incredibly awkward in a way that you are very prepared for, and he doesn’t even get real people to sweat on. He only interacts with other gasping improv comics whose every character is ‘myself, but more unlikeable.’ 

Luckily there is a crazy beating heart in the chest of this desperate premise. Yes, it’s the King of Quirk himself, Gary Busey:

Haha, classic Busey! Always looking like a drunk mop and saying shit that sounds like it’s been translated to Chinese and back. I’m sure they’ve written some baseline setups for his weirdness, but you cannot get Gary Busey to follow a script unless you tape it to the ghosts he thinks are attacking him. At the very least, you know all of the strange acronyms and endocrine references are pure unmitigated Busey:

Hey thanks! That’s really cool. Listen, I do not have a cigarette and I’m starting to think I missed the last bus to Akron. I’m just gonna go to the bathr-

You’re going to follow me to the bathroom, aren’t you?

Gary Busey has the mannerisms of a shell-shocked lizard and he talks like he came unstuck from time while having an argument with Bjork. But hey, real quick, do you know why Gary Busey is like that?

If you’re of a certain age, you probably remember that. It was a huge deal. But we’ve been making fun of Gary Busey’s brain damage for so long that a whole generation of young adults have no idea ‘the weird dude from reality shows’ actually left every third thing he knew on a California sidewalk back in 1988. Gary Busey is only “quirky” because he was in the most ironic type of motorcycle accident:

And has been suffering from long-term degenerative brain damage ever since. In fact, that’s where those acronyms come from. He’s not joking about those — they mean the world to him, and they literally started the second he scrambled his brain.

If you’re under 30, Gary Busey’s just a Hollywood Weirdo best known for being the wild card that derails the Build-A-Bear challenge and gets Team Leader Xzibit sent home. But start at the bottom of his IMDB page and scroll up to watch a man lose his mind in slow motion. If they’d picked any other host, this series would have only been disappointing. But by anchoring the whole thing on Gary Busey and then staffing it with quirky extras doing Eric Andre impressions, they have effectively made a show where everyone is pretending to have mental problems except for the main character, who is genuinely trying to communicate with other humans through a broken interface.

I’m not trying to take the moral high ground here. The savvy among you may have noticed I made several Gary Busey jokes, myself, and if you missed them, here’s another one: Gary Busey is like if Nick Nolte fell into a vat at Ace Chemicals.

I don’t even know what the moral high ground is in this situation, because the alternative to paying Gary Busey so you can laugh at his brain damage is not paying him at all. I’m just saying half of this show is written to be “quirky” and “awkward” and the other half of this show is trying to cushion Gary Busey’s forehead as he headbutts holes in the drywall looking for wall gold. 

Please note that those improv comics’ hilarious response to this one was “stunned silence,” followed by “checking around the set to see if anyone was coming to help.”

Amazon have effectively made a show called “guess which one has genuine mental health problems” and it is fucking crazy that premise got greenlit! It’s literally a comedy show designed around trying to ‘one-up’ a mental patient as his scattered brain draws faulty conclusions from neuronic connections whose other half is coloring a curb in Culver City.

This format does not function in any other permutation! You can’t pair a bunch of young actors pretending to be goth with one that’s genuinely suicidal and bill it as a comedy. You probably can’t set it on a bus and call it Across the Street or Down the Road. You can’t start a dating show by mixing a bunch of reality skanks in with one seeking help for a crippling sex addiction. Maybe her name is Penny, but even so, you certainly can’t call it Penny For Your Thots. You can’t… you can’t pair a bunch of comedians doing cruel impressions with a guy who actually has Down’s Syndrome and then bring on contestants who have to guess which ones are faking. You can’t call it Don’t Bring Me Down’s. You can’t do it! You should go to jail for thinking it! You can’t hire a bunch of improv dropouts and put them in a room with a mental patient and tell them all “everything he says is your next prompt” and call it Gary Busey: Pet Judge. Oh wait, shit, that’s the real one!

This article is brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme, Kenlel Paisley: The Shogun of Slam, the Daimyo of Damn, the Tenno that’s a straight ten, yo.

Categories
NERDING DAY

Nerding Day: Zorklon

Once, long ago, there was a comedy website that only wanted three simple things: to make people laugh, to teach them a few things, and to make enough money to rescue every monkey that knew how to flip someone off. It succeeded in two of those goals, before getting piledriven into the dirt by corporate scavengers. Some of its archives have been deleted, some of them have been corrupted, and some just suck. You decide which one this is. It’s…

Categories
LEARNING DAY

Cracked Remaster: The Most Efficient Way To Do Everything

Once, long ago, there was a comedy website that only wanted three simple things: to make people laugh, to teach them a few things, and to make enough money to buy a company hovercraft. It succeeded in two of those goals, before getting piledriven into the dirt by corporate scavengers. Some of its archives have been deleted, some of them have been corrupted, and some just suck. You decide which one this is. It’s…

We all want to be more efficient, so I’ve found as many quick, easy methods to streamline your life as I could threaten Google into giving me. And so you’re sure there’s actual merit to all of these practices, I’ll also be testing them out first. Hopefully nothing goes horribly awry here! Why do I hear a violin sting every time I say that?

Day 1:

Most Efficient Way to Sleep

Every night, we bend to Big Slumber’s twisted whims, sacrificing perfectly good video game and pornography time just to lay completely motionless in week-old laundry for eight hours. We must destroy sleep. And for that, we turn to something called polyphasic sleeping. The basic idea is that there are five stages to normal sleep, but only one of those is actually important: the REM phase, where dreaming happens. By cutting out the bullshit sleeps, you can shake down your brain until it gives up and learns to slip directly into REM the second you close your eyes. It’s basically mugging the shit out of your own mind to steal its dreams. It’s fucking awesome.

There are several types of polyphasic schedules, but for the purposes of this test, I will be using the Uberman system, which consists of sleeping only 20 minutes per session, once every four hours.

Ideally, once you’ve grown accustomed to that schedule, you’ll only need a total of two hours of sleep for every 24-hour period. I started this last night, and it’s working pretty OK so far. I’m a bit tired now, but I find that the naps refresh me just enough to keep going. However, it is supposed to take roughly a week to retrain your brain, so this is more of a passive test. We’ll see how it progresses as time passes.

Day 2:

Most Efficient Way to Stir Liquids

According to the Japanese, everything you’ve done today, you’ve done completely wrong. They are to efficiency what Wade Boggs is to whatever Wade Boggs does — some kind of marsh monster, I’m assuming? Like the secret identity of Swamp Thing? Shit, I don’t know: Sleep deprivation is making it kind of hard to focus.

Anyway, there’s a Japanese method that’s about to call into question everything you know about stirring powder into liquids. It’s going to turn the powder-dissolution world on its fucking ear! Are you sitting down? Are you ready for this? The best way to stir a powder into a liquid is actually by using lateral motions, not the conventional circular pattern we all know and love.

For those of us who frequently stir powders into our drinks and the drinks of others, this method could save literally dozens of seconds every month! Hey, speaking of stirring powder into things …

Most Efficient Way to Take Adderall

This sleep schedule is killing me. I just put the milk outside and tried to drink out of the dog. Something must be done. Luckily, the drugs forum (the best forum) has a more efficient way to ingest our recommended daily intake of Vitamin A(dderall): Just take a teaspoon or two of baking soda an hour beforehand. See, the effectiveness of amphetamines depends largely on the pH of the stomach, and alkaline agents like baking soda help speed the initial absorption, as well as decrease the efficiency of the elimination process.

In short: takes effect sooner, lasts longer. Technically, this works on all amphetamines, but of course a quick Google search tells me Adderall is the most widely available legal one, so let’s all just assume that’s the thing I’m stirring into my Grape Flavor-Aid.

Most Efficient Shoe Lace Knot

I don’t know if it’s the polyphasic sleep finally paying off, or just the Ol’ Nippon Swish kick-starting my amphetamine cocktails, but I really feel like I could (and should) fight some kind of snake right now. The closest thing I have to that on my agenda, however, is tying my shoes. Let’s do the SHIT OUT OF THAT!

This is the Ian-knot, so named for the intertwined duality inherent in the many roles of Sir Ian McKellan and holy shit I can type so fast look at this! You can just tell that sentence was fast, right? By reading the words? They read fast as shit, right!?

Hey, OK, task at hand: Begin with a normal starting knot, cross the two laces and tuck one under and through. Then you do th…

… w-what is this, witchcraft? I don’t – Listen, I don’t have time for this. The website says you do this:

“The right (blue) lace is held between the right thumb and forefinger whilst the left (yellow) lace is held around the left thumb and forefinger, using the other fingers of the left hand to hold the lace taut. This move creates two loops, one with the loose end behind, the other with the loose end in front. Use the middle finger of the right hand to push the loose end of the right lace behind, whilst the left hand simply rotates forwards to swing its loop across to the right. This next move crosses the two loops over each other. Use the left thumb to push its loose end over to the right, whilst the right middle finger continues to push its loose end all the way between the left thumb and forefinger to end up inside the left loop. This tricky move requires each hand to use the two fingers inside its own loop to grab the loose end of the other hand’s loop. Use the left thumb and forefinger to grab the loose right end, then the right thumb and middle finger can grab the loose left end. This final step simply completes the knot by pulling the loops tight.“

See, efficiency is already paying off! Copy/pasting those directions was way faster than explaining them. Found the process a little incomprehensible? So what!? You don’t need to understand shit, buddy; you’ve got fucking witch shoes now. Oh, and as a bonus, not only is this the fastest common knot, but it will almost never come undone — even while kicking dozens of furious snakes!

Get off my feet!

GET OFF MY FEET, SNAKES.

Day 3:

The Most Efficient Way to Drink

I have found the Uberman schedule to be astoundingly effective, and if a few of the neighborhood cats want to give me disturbing orders as a side effect, so be it! However I now find myself, if anything, a bit too awake. I can actually see through people’s intentions, and I cannot emotionally deal with the things they truly think about me. Maybe it’s just an adjustment period in the sleep schedule, or maybe I wasn’t supposed to factor this Japanese meth-punch into my new routine, but regardless, I need to dial it back a little. So this is as good a time as any to explore the most efficient way to have a nice relaxing drink or 12 (and without consequences!).

In 2004, a double-blind, placebo controlled crossover trial found that prickly pear extract inhibits the production of inflammatory mediators associated with the symptoms of hangovers, if consumed approximately five hours before drinking alcohol.

Further, most negative effects of alcohol are only caused in the first place by toxins called congeners, which mostly show up in dark liquors like red wine, bourbon, whiskey and tequila. Clear liquors have significantly fewer toxins. So if pear extract counteracts the effects of congeners, and clear liquors have the least to start with, then does pear vodka theoretically cancel itself out? I’m going to assume yes.

I’m going to assume yes forever!

Most Efficient Way to Peel a Potato

For maximum efficiency, I have started Nippon Swishing whatever legal amphetamine I said I was taking right into the pear vodka. Now I want — nay, need — a potato, for reasons that are unclear to me at this time.

As with all things, we must do this as efficiently as possible.

Step 1: Cut a thin slit around the circumference of the potato.

Step 2: Boil until soft.

Step 3: Plunge into a bowl of ice water for 10 seconds.

Step 4: Grasp skin by each end, and pull off.

Step 5: Become the thing you fear.

Day 4:

Most Efficient Way to Move

Walking is proving difficult, and I assume that’s because I’ve become too efficient to do things suboptimally. I have sown the Google, and reaped this: The most efficient way to run is heel-striking. The key is to simply contact the ground with your heel first. This was a little awkward, walking on just my heels, and I ended up kind of stilting around like Jack Skellington.

But eventually I nailed it. (PROPTIP: Think of it less like “walking,” and more like “repeatedly stabbing the Earth with your feet.”)

The most efficient way to move in general is called slipstreaming, and the beauty of it is that it’s beneficial to all parties. When an object travels in the slipstream — a kind of air wake left behind by another object — the rear object requires less power to maintain its speed, while the leading object actually moves faster, because the rear object reduces the low pressure region behind it. Of course, the two objects have to be moving at a pretty fair clip and nearly touching to achieve this effect, but I haven’t found that to be a problem: Every single time I disjointedly doll-walk right up behind somebody, they take off like a fucking shot.

BUT I CAN ALWAYS KEEP UP WITH THEM.

THANKS SLIPSTREAMING!

Day 5:

Most Efficient Way to Boil Water

Did you know that a drip brew coffee maker is seven percent more efficient than even a high end electric kettle and I really wanted to put a question mark back there but it’s like I can’t actually catch up to my fingers so I’m trying to trick them into stopping with an exclamation point!

Most Efficient Way to Pack

Roll

everything.

ROLL.

EVERYTHING.

Most Efficient Way to Fold a T-shirt

Hi Japan! I love you so much, you crazy archipelago! Actually I love everything because everything is fantastic and I am riding on a boat of euphoria cresting a wave of endorphins that’s about to crash down and utterly obliterate a coastline of contentment. Hey, what’s this shit about T-shirts? Fuck yes, let’s do whatever this is as hard as possible!

So I set the shirt down flat, front side up. Then I grab this side just off center, pinch the top edge right above that, then I … fold it …

… inside of … itself?

No.

No, that’s not right. It’s wrong. All wrong. Everything is wrong.

Something has turned. Japan just violated my universe and nothing is going to be OK. Nothing is ever going to be OK again.

Day 6:

Most Efficient Way to Think

Thinking is a boulder I can no longer push up this hill. I type now only because somebody (a mad man, perhaps?) told these fingers to start, and now they won’t stop. I pray for the brief moments of respite that periods grant me. They are an oasis of relief in a desert of empty, worthless words. I need some help figuring a way out of this mess, and so I turn to mind-maps: Allegedly, a more efficient way to think.

Mind-maps are diagrams representing words, ideas, and the various ways the DMV is trying to track your emotions. The key to mind-mapping is to intuitively align whatever concepts are in your mind along a series of branching paths, each ending in madness and death (except one that ends in candy, seen here).

And I’ve got to say, this practice really has helped. Before, I was plunging headlong through a thick miasmic fog full of clowns and bastards, each wanting to simultaneously entertain and fuck me. But now I have reached out and grasped the universe just off center, and at the top edge, I pull. I am folding the universe into itself into itself into itself. The center cannot hold, because the center is a pussy. We will not yield — not to bastards, not to clowns — because now that we have a mind-map, we need only follow it to its inevitable, and in retrospect, obvious conclusion.

Most Efficient Way to Kill a Man

The number 9 is the most sinister number. It wants you to think it’s a six, but it can’t quite pull that trick off; even if you flip it upside down there’s something just slightly wrong about its presentation — like the flat deadness you see behind the eyes of every single stewardess. Clearly, if any number knows how to kill a man, it’s 9. Here is a brief list of efficient murder: Mostly temple-blows and neck-smashing. But wait, what’s that down there — the 9th most efficient way to kill a man?

“The Coccyx: A powerful blow to the tail bone. Fatal.“

Yes.

I say again: Yes.

In Conclusion:

I have hopefully just slept for 65 hours. That time is gone, and sleep is the best explanation for its absence. I do not know where I am. I suspect it is a Denny’s, by the sheer volume of palpable sadness and pancakes. I have no idea what all of this was for; I just wanted to tie my shoes faster. That’s all. Just shave a minute or so from my footwear routine. Now I’m looking at like … like some kind of Bizarro map of Candyland tattooed on my chest?

I don’t want to make too many assumptions here. The last … however many days have passed are naught but a series of rapid, disturbing still images, devoid of context or morality — like attending a slideshow where your parents have accidentally mixed up their amateur porn with the vacation photos. But it’s this section here in the upper left that’s really troubling me.

Listen, don’t say anything out loud — never trust a Denny’s — but if, at some point during my disappearance, the actor Judge Reinhold suddenly died from mysterious ass-related injuries, blink twice.

Wait, no, blink once; more efficient.

Categories
FUCKING DAY

Classic Remaster – Way of the Barbarian

Once, long ago, there was a comedy website that only wanted three simple things: to make people laugh, to teach them a few things, and to make enough money to become immune to human laws. It succeeded in two of those goals, before getting piledriven into the dirt by corporate scavengers. Some of its archives have been deleted, some of them have been corrupted, and some just suck. You decide which one this is. It’s…

There’s a Russian religious text called The Way of The Pilgrim that suggests one can achieve a state of grace by incessantly reciting the Jesus Prayer until it becomes automatic. I thought this was a beautiful idea: It’s like brainwashing your own soul into goodness. I decided to give the concept a shot myself, but I don’t really want to be filled with grace. So instead of the Jesus Prayer, I am incessantly repeating an exchange from Conan the Barbarian. With every heartbeat, I am going to pray: 

“Conan, what is best in life?”

“To crush your enemies, see them driven before you and to hear the lamentation of their women.” 

***

I woke up as usual: sticky, frustrated, and unconsciously suckling at a bottle of Beefeaters like it was the sour teat of Bessundra, Sumerian cow-goddess of both fertility and brewing.

I remembered my goal: 

“CONAN!” I bellowed. “WHAT IS BEST IN LIFE?” 

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” came an answer from the living room. 

“To crush your enemies, see them driven before you,” I continued softly, padding across the blood-stained hallway (ain’t a thing; I just do my bleeding in the hallway).

I made the living room, and couldn’t help but notice that Bill Pullman was suspended from my ceiling.

Pretty sure that I didn’t have a Bill Pullman chandelier before. I closed my eyes and counted to 10, because I’m no Freshman to waking nightmares. 

Still there. He hung from an elaborate contraption that looked like equal parts examination table and torture rack. He was strapped into it with a pair of Darth Vader’s ski-boots. His face was purple and flushed. A single bead of sweat rolled down his neck and traced the contours of his jawline. 

“Bill Pullman?” I ventured.

His eyes snapped open. They were so bloodshot you could actually see the bulge of veins in there.

“PAX. TON.” He screeched, heaving himself to the ceiling. “I’m motherfucking Bill Paxton, you greenish shitsmear.” 

He undid the snaps on his boots and flipped to the ground. The blood quickly drained from his head, filtering down through his torso. I could see every single artery filling up, like an intricate network of tiny snakes digesting.

“Why are you on my ceiling, Bill Paxton?” I asked what I thought to be a reasonable question. 

“This is how I sleep, dick ooze! The single greatest flaw in the human experience is the horizontal sleeping position. It reduces bloodflow to the brain and starves the cells of oxygen. Every single night that I sleep like this, I get smarter. When last measured, I had an IQ of 735. I fuckin’ invented yogurt, you bag of distended testicles.” 

I shrank back, but remembered my new mantra. 

“Conan!” I told him matter-of-factly, “what is best in life? To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.” 

“What are you, some of kind of fuckin’ silica pack eater?” He edged toward the kitchen. “Why do you keep saying that?” 

Easily the best thing in my life was finding Bill Paxton inverted in my living room. I couldn’t lose this. I had to internalize my prayer.

‘Conanwhatisbestinlife,’ I thought to myself, even as I reassured Bill Paxton that I was not, in fact, “the dippest shit in fucktown” as he kept insisting. 

I needed a cool lie. I explained that I was part of an experimental prog-rock band that covered movie dialogue instead of songs. 

“What’s this merry band of butthole enthusiasts called?” he inquired, seemingly set at ease. 

“The… SoundtraXXX?” I regretted it immediately. 

“That’s a name stupider than two shits on a single fuck,” he laughed. 

Damn, but the man could swear. He saw what I was thinking:

“It’s the inverted sleeping, cockfart. It stimulates the intellect, but also inflames the part of the brain responsible for aggression. I’m so fuckin’ smart I’m like Einstein gaping Tesla’s asshole, but I swear like a syphilitic sailor and I fuckin’ kill dudes like you slap your limp little dick around.” 

As if to drive his point home, he suddenly karate-kicked my refrigerator. It rocked gently. The soft jingle of glass bottles clanking together. We stood in silence for a long moment. 

“Fucknuckles,” he whispered. 

***

I still had to work, and the last time I left Bill Paxton alone in my house he replaced my ceiling fan with a profane genius-swing. We hopped in my weather-beaten Kia and he sung along to Kansas’s Carry on Wayward Son, replacing every single word with some variation of “fuck.” 

“Fuckin’ fuck my fucko fuu-uuuck” sang Bill Paxton. “Fuck you fuck fuck motherfuu-uuuck.” 

I was oddly serene. I should have been nervous. I should have been confused. But I was having difficulty parsing emotions while repeating my mantra. 

LamentationoftheirwomenConanwhatisbest. 

The office. Bill Paxton rabbit punched my glove-box as I talked to the security guard. 

“He needs no visi-tor pass,” I informed the guard, puffing my chest out. “This is the Paxton and he goes where he will.” 

My speech patterns were getting bizarre. I made a mental note to research potential side-effects of brainwashing, and was surprised to find myself clutching the guard’s necktie and kneeling on his back. I’m not sure when I brought him to the ground, but I remember exactly when I got the erection.

A little fieldmouse of a man refused to hold the elevator for us, so Bill Paxton and I raced up the stairs instead. We were waiting for him when the doors opened on the 7th floor. Bill Paxton took him high with a clothesline, I went low and slide-kicked his knees out. His briefcase exploded. A sheaf of papers, a laptop, a saran-wrapped croissant. Shrapnel from a Business Grenade. 

Bill Paxton instantly regretted it. He offered the man a hand up while I held my arms in the air and roared. 

“What some call misfortune, others call adventure,” Paxton consoled the mouse. “The Chinese have a word that means both tragedy and opportunity. Suckfuckers fuck sucks.”

The meek one sprinted toward the fire exit, triggering my chase reflex. He survived that day. The hunt is not always successful.

“Come, Paxton. Let us take the office,” I suggested. The edges of my vision were going red, dimmed by a curtain of blood. 

Crushyourenemiesandseethemdriven. 

“Why do you ride with me, Paxton?” I said.

“Are you asking how we met, shitclot?” He asked. “Saw you last night at the bar — you got so drunk you ate an entire fake plant. Not a small one. Like a fern. I fuckin’ had to follow up on that. For science.”

I pushed open the double glass doors leading to my office. They shattered as they rebounded off the walls. 

“Lament, women! Rejoice, men! We ride. WE RIDE!” I roared.

 “Ffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu-” Paxton hummed under his breath. 

***

I was having a hard time concentrating on the PowerPoint Presentation, so I decided to pinch and hiss at the man beside me. I glowered at him, daring him to cry out. He was quietly sobbing when the lights came up.

At some point during the presentation, I had stripped to the waist and drawn primitive runes across my torso with a highlighter. Somewhere along the line I had also lost Bill Paxton. That would probably have repercussions later. 

A man I once recognized as my superior was summoning me forward. It seemed that I had some sort of responsibility here — a report to give, an argument to proffer — I had no idea what these petty business concerns entailed, nor did I care. I stood and began tearing at my chair. My coworkers gabbled in confusion. Somewhere, the sound of glass breaking. Somewhere, a muffled shout. The slap of footsteps, growing louder. A distant alarm. 

Bestinlifetocrush.

One final wrench and I pulled the steel spine of my chair free. I wrapped the base of it in the shredded cloth of my discarded shirt. I wielded it in both hands, my makeshift broadsword, and charged my boss with a barbaric yawp. We would find out, together, which man was truly superior. Blood asks a question. Blood gives an answer.

The window facing the main room bubbled up like a blistering pustule, and burst in a shower of flames and glass. Looking through the shattered pane, I saw hell.

“BILL PULLMAN JUST BUILT A FLAMETHROWER OUT OF THE COPY MACHINE AND HE’S BURNING EVERYTHING!” Screamed a disheveled woman. 

“PAX. FUCKING. TON.” Bill screamed after the woman, as she fled from a burst of fresh flame. “CHRIST ON AN ASS I AM SO BILL PAXTON AS FUCK!” 

There was frenzy in The Paxton’s eyes. Sweat poured down his neck as he called with his trigger, and the inferno answered. A manic laugh percolated in my gut, overflowed my chest, poured out from my lips. I mounted the conference table, held my Ikeablade aloft, and rejoiced in the heat of the flames. I roared, because it felt good to roar.

LAMENTATIONOFTHEIRWOMEN.

***

I woke to the comfortingly pedestrian sounds of the morning news. It was all a fever dream, probably brought on by two bottles of Aftershock poured into a vaporizer and inhaled from an embossed foil balloon with the words “Happy Retirement, Martin” written in gold leaf across the front. It just felt like that kind of dream.

I reached for my face and came up short. Pain in my wrist. I was not in my own bed, nor was I alone. My coworkers — bruised, beaten, and burned — were standing over me.

“I just had the weirdest dream,” I laughed, “and you were there! And you were there! And you were there! And hey why am I chained to this radiator?” 

“Is he out of it now?” One asked.

“Bill Paxton’s agent said there was some sort of gas leak that caused temporary madness.” 

“I guess it’s worn off.”

“Should we let him go?” 

“I suppose. Jeremy, get the chains off, would you?” 

A little fieldmouse of a man reached down to undo my bindings. I smiled at him benignly.

The lock tumbled to the floor. He leaned close to shake the chains loose.

“Conan,” I whispered in his ear as my blood began to burn. “What is best in life?”

Categories
UPSETTING DAY

Classic Remaster – Dumb Things White People Think About Other Races

Once, long ago, there was a comedy website that only wanted three simple things: to make people laugh, to teach them a few things, and to make enough money to skywrite a new penis every day of the week. It succeeded in two of those goals, before getting piledriven into the dirt by corporate scavengers. Some of its archives have been deleted, some of them have been corrupted, and some just suck. You decide which one this is. It’s…

Note from Brockway: Most people got this just fine, but I did take some heat for it. For the record: the lesson here is not that gentle bigotry is okay. Gentle bigotry is like Bud Light Seltzer – just as bad as the real thing, but marketed toward pussies. The point is that even ‘positive’ racism sucks. In general, keep one thing in mind while reading any story in which “Brockway” is a character: I’M THE BAD GUY. DON’T AGREE WITH ME.

Also check out this killer short play some kids made out of this article.

…

“I’m pretty sure Mexicans enjoy things more than me,” I grumbled, picking at a cowlick of fine white thread jutting from the seam of a black leather sofa.

“Why do you think that?” The therapist replied. 

“Anything I’m doing — I don’t know, it just seems like there’s a Mexican out there enjoying it way more than me. Like, say I go have a beer: I’m okay. I’m vaguely happy. I turn my head, and three stools down there’s a Mexican guy, just loving the shit out of his beer. He looks like a beer commercial. I swear to God he exhales frost after every sip. And the worst part — do you want to hear the worst part?”

“Go ahead,” he frowned at me as I continued plucking at his precious string.

“It’s not even a better beer than mine. It’s a goddamn Coors or something.”

“Maybe you’d like Coors better.”

“Maybe I’d- no! Fuck Coors. That’s just an example. I could be stuck in line at the grocery store behind a lady trying to use expired coupons. I’m standing there nurturing an ulcer, thinking, ‘They’re expired! Expired! You can’t haggle the unceasing forward movement of time! Pay the 15 cents extra! I’ll kill you! I’ll wipe your seed from the Earth!’ Then I look back, and three spots behind me, there’s an old Mexican woman just smiling away. She’s not even doing anything. She’s just looking at the mints, smiling. What the fuck is that? Those are funny mints? Fuck you! This bullshit is burning irretrievable minutes of your life, same as mine, and you don’t even have as much time left. Why aren’t you here, unhappy with me?”

“So you have problems with Mexicans?”

“No, that’s not it. Go out on a sunny day and walk around for a bit. I promise you, you’ll find a group of Mexicans all just standing outside, talking to each other, laughing. They look like how I picture nostalgia. I go do the exact same thing and it’s nothing. It’s garbage. The whole time I’m thinking ‘this sucks, I’d rather be rereading Achewood or some shit.’”

“It sounds like you need to reevalua-“

“Black people are better at conversation.”

“What?” The doctor blinked up from his pad.

“Black people never have to worry about making conversation! They just open their mouths and start going, and it’s great. It’s friendly, it’s easy, it’s totally relatable. And I don’t mean just to each other — to everybody! I talk to any given black person and it’s always the best goddamn conversation I’ve had in months. It’s fantastic. Everybody loves talking to black people. But I open my mouth at a stranger and it’s like I’m vomiting awkwardness into their ears. Just an endless stream of ‘ums’ and ‘ahs,’ and then I start saying shit like ‘ostensibly.’ Or-“

“I think the theme here is a lack of confi-“

“OR,” I barreled through his interruption, “or worse! People say, ‘Howdy’ on the street, and I shakily whisper, ‘Good, and you?’ And that’s if anything comes out at all. Sometimes it’s like they’ve snuck up on my throat and all I can do is squeak.”

“We all have our-“

“I squeak. At strangers. On the street.”

“Casual interac-“

“Like an incel chipmunk. SQUEAK,” I squeaked, “SQUEAAAK.”

“Casual in-“

“SQUEEAAAAK.”

We glared at each other in silence. He took a deep breath, scribbled in the corner of his pad to get his pen going again, and exhaled.

“I think-” he started.

“I’m just saying: Never been squeaked at by a black man.”

He frowned at his notepad. I finally got a good, solid grip on that stray thread and started to work it back and forth. The rattling pen fell quiet, and the therapist harrumphed at me.

“Sorry,” I said, making a big show of releasing his stupid thread. Which I didn’t even want anymore. 

“Yes, well, you clearly have some racial issues to work through. Now, most patients that enroll in my program-“

“Enroll? Is that what you call it? The only ‘enrolling’ I did was the cops ‘enrolling’ my ass through that doorway.”

“I was just trying to be polite, but if you insist: Most offenders placed in my program have some hostility to work through, but yours seems to be rooted almost entirely in jealousy. You’re laboring under the impression that other groups — essentially all the other groups — have it easier than you: A white, straight, middle-class American male.”

“That’s not fair,” I said, and surreptitiously raised my knee to block his view so I could really go to town on that thread. “I totally get that I have it easy, and a lot of other people have it way harder. I watched Fresh Prince; I know all about racism. I’m just saying that some groups do some things better than others, and pretty much all of them do everything better than me.”

“And you don’t see how that statement might be insulting or unreasonable to some people?”

“I totally do not. Is it racist to say that Chinese people are more resilient?”

“Yes, absolutely, that is basically the definition of racism.”

“You put me in a Chinese guy’s shoes — basically any Chinese guy’s shoes — and no way could I handle that. I’d be dead in a week. You know there’s a Chinese guy downtown that pulls tourists around in a little wheeled cart?”

“Rickshaw?”

“I don’t know his name dude; he’s the guy that pulls the fucking cart.”

The doctor inhaled through his nose for a very long time.

“I get winded walking up hills,” I continued, really getting my sweet unravel on. “If I had to strap a cart full of fat Germans to my ass just to earn some sandwich money, I’d probably lay down somewhere quiet and try not to starve to death in anybody’s way. Not Rick, though. Rick fucking endures.”

“While it’s clear you have just a … an ocean of issues to work through, let’s talk about what brought you here, to my office today.”

“A squad car?”

“The incident,” his scribbles were coming more often now. His pen was running low. “You know which one I mean.”

“The Native American guy,” I admitted.

“Yes, the one you assaulted and forcibly stripped on 4th street this morning.” 

The man’s tone had shifted from casual to factual. 

“Yeah,” I said, “… yeah.”

“Why did you do that?” The doctor leaned back and fumbled for something on the desk behind him. He came back with a new pen, the hint of a smile on his lips.

“Extenuating circumstances,” I answered. 

I had this thread thing down, now: Smooth, slow, even strokes were the key. You had to keep a constant light tension going, so as not to break the fragile strands. It was unraveling into little loops that settled in the space between couch and cushion. My secret treasure horde.

“Go on,” he prompted, uncapping his new pen and settling in.

“I was walking down 4th, just doing how I do — kicking at people’s heels then gesturing to the guy next to me when they turn around — when I bumped into this huge crowd on the sidewalk. After a few minutes of angry elbowing, I noticed they were all looking the same direction: Up. Then I saw it: Some girl was out on the roof of this ratty little hotel. Out on the ledge. Something in her body language — I don’t know what it was — but I just knew she was going to jump soon. And there was nobody there yet. No cops, no paramedics, no firemen, nothing. Just the crowd of us, all the way down on the street. People were trying to yell things up to her, but she was too far away. She couldn’t hear. I knew, I just knew that she would do it before anybody got up there to stop her.”

“And … how, exactly, did this lead to your fourth-degree sexual assault on Mr. Kohana?”

“Well it seems stupid now, but I guess I just panicked. We’re all standing around, knowing that there was nothing anybody could do: She couldn’t hear us, we couldn’t get to her, she was going to jump and she was going to die. That was it. Then I looked over and saw a Native American guy. I thought I saw a chance — no matter how remote — and I took it.”

“The police report here says that you ‘leapt upon Mr. Kohana’s back, pulling at his shirt and screaming ‘transform, you heartless bastard, take eagle form and fly to her! There’s no time!'” 

The doctor looked up at me.

“Are you going to make me say it?” I whined.

He stared. I pulled thread.

“I secretly believe some Native Americans can shape shift,” I admitted, ashamed.

“Why on Earth would you believe something so preposterous?” He started to note something on his little pad, but almost immediately moved the pen back up to the corner and began scribbling again. He groaned.

“Well, why is it so ubiquitous, if there’s not some truth to it?! Every comic book, every sci-fi novel, every horror movie, every anything with a Native American guy in it has him transforming into some kind of animal at some point!”

“Those are just stories,” the doctor answered tersely, tossing his pen in the wastebasket and reaching for another.

“Right, but what’s the common theme for say, Puerto Ricans in pop culture? That they’re passionate? You know what, in my limited experience, I have found them to be kind of passionate. The French? Sophisticated. Sure, there are some hooligans and idiots, but generally speaking, they’re a pretty cultured people. White American guys? Ignorant. Well would you look at that? Here I am, a white American guy, thinking Native Americans can turn into wolves if they just want it badly enough. Sounds pretty ignorant to me.”

“Well, it’s hard to argue that,” he admitted, clicking the new pen and touching it to paper. 

My busy fingers. Idly twisting thread. Around and around. Steady, even pressure.

“So when it came right down to the wire, when the stress kicked in, when it was really life or death on the line, yes: I figured there was like a 30 percent chance that man could turn into a bird. Is that really so stupid?”

The room was quiet, save for the thirsty rasp of an empty nib tearing through paper. Windows broke behind the doctor’s eyes.

“YES!” The doctor screamed, his cashed pen bouncing off my skull. He stood and yanked at his tie. His face went flush. “IT IS STUPID! IT IS THE STUPIDEST THING! IT IS STUPID AND RACIST AND HARMFUL AND THEN STUPID THREE MORE TIMES AGAIN!”

A soft pop. I had broken the thread loose from its last mooring, and a long flap of black leather plopped over onto my belly, revealing the wispy cotton padding of the couch beneath.

“RRRRRRAAAAAAAGH!!!” A scream tore out of him, ripping him open from crotch to throat. His skin burst like an overcooked sausage and sloughed off into a pile of rubbery meat. In the therapist’s place, there was now a slavering black bear. It dug its claws into the pulpy bamboo floorboards, muscles visibly pulsing beneath layers of fat and fur, and exploded through the closed door. It loped down the corridor beyond, a tide of panicked screams receding with it.

The stunned receptionist stared in at me from the waiting room.

“Holy shit,” I breathed. “Rosenberg’s a Native American name?”

…

This article was brought to you by our fine patron and Hot Dog Supreme: Adrienne Hisbrook, who has gotten away with every human crime, and six dog ones.