Author: Lydia Bugg

Categories
FUCKING DAY

Mascot Week: Supermodelquins 🌭

To kick off Mascot Week, I am bringing you not the tale of a single mascot but many, and they’re all fucking. You asked for Mascot Week so I’m opening the dark door at the end of my brain hallway marked Supermodelquins, the 2008 mass delusion Old Navy used to desperately try and sell pants. Do you like celebrities but hate the warmth of humanity in their eyes? Then the Supermodelquins are for you! Most stores want to discourage customers from coming into their store and trying to fuck the mannequins, but not Old Navy. They’re your mannequin fucking sommelier, suggesting the hottest mannequins for the discerning fondler.

During the 2008 recession, Old Navy was in big trouble. Celebrities were starting consumer fashion lines at their competitors like Kohl’s and Macy’s but all Old Navy had to compete with was a long, cylindrical fanny pack for men they were calling a drink duffle. No one wanted this tall shame tube, so as a last resort Old Navy decided to create their own celebrities. The Supermodelquins were more than just mascots. They had beef, they had tea, they had a full four-course meal of drama. Plus, their own gossip magazine and at least three unpaid interns running social media accounts for each of them across multiple networks.

Let me start by introducing you to the major Supermodelquin players and their primary storylines. Kelly is the main character of the Supermodelquin universe. She used to date Josh but they broke up and he got together with Heather who’s British for some reason. Wesley is the hot one; he’s married to Michelle, and they have two children. Eva is a single mother to her daughter after her divorce from Enrique, who makes a few guest appearances but is not a main Supermodelquin cast member. Amy is also there, but frankly, she is the worst. It’s unclear who owns Barker Bones the dog, but he is the middle dog of three dog mascot iterations Old Navy has attempted, including Paco and Magic. I know the answer to this question will open my eyes to a secret world of darkness, but where are all of the dogs going, Old Navy!?

The main Supermodelquins storylines happened in Old Navy commercials but then the astoundingly large cast continued those storylines in online feuds that were also ads for pants. Old Navy newspaper ads were redesigned to look like issues of People magazine in a world conquered by the charm of our mannequin overlords. These ads also sometimes picked up threads from the commercials or introduced plots that would work their way into the commercials later.

The Supermodelquins campaign begs us to be interested in the Supermodelquins fucking. The primary plots were often romance-related, and a lot of the jokes in the commercials were weirdly sexual. Old Navy objectified the hell out of these objects in the hopes of beating out big name stars like Avril Lavinge and her brand Abbey Dawn. Sure, Kohl’s might have had a dumb pop star at their store sometimes, but Old Navy had seven accessible, poseable, celebrities for people to take selfies with at every location. However, most people only chose to take photos with the dog.

In fact, the Barker Bones mannequin was so popular that it’s still in lots of stores today, devoid of the Supermodelquins context. It’s so popular that it’s often stolen from the stores. There was even a cursed 2020 TikTok trend of kids publicly stealing it for social media clout. Barker Bones is the enduring celebrity of the Supermodelquins, the Beyonce to their Destiny’s Child.

Old Navy loved the idea of people being so invested in the mannequin’s personal lives that they would come into the store and take photos with them. That was the ultimate goal of the campaign. They really thought that the mannequins would become an attraction that would drive people into the stores with the mere presence of their celebrity. They even took the mannequins out to events so they could photograph them with real C and D list celebrities of the 2000s hoping some of their star power would rub off on them. Kim Kardashian was photographed canoodling with both Wesley and Josh in 2009, even though they were both in committed relationships at the time. This picture probably took twelve meetings, 65 phone calls, and $170,000 to set up, and you are the first people to see it:

Let’s talk about some of the major storylines that ran through the commercials. There was the Josh/Kelly/Heather love triangle that featured Josh proposing to Heather in a commercial for the Old Navy town gown. Then at their engagement party, which was also a commercial for shorts called “In Shorts Surprise,” Heather learned that Josh has a tattoo of Kelly on his leg and is upset. Later, in a commercial for jeans, we learn they’ve broken up, and Heather is now spending time with auxiliary Supermodelquin, Eva’s ex-husband Enrique! Old Navy fit all of that into one-minute and thirty-second increments mostly about pants and only slightly about which mannequins are currently banging.

Since I refuse to enjoy any television program that doesn’t jump the shark in a ridiculous way by suddenly including magic two seasons in, “The Booty Reader” is my favorite Supermodelquins storyline. Eva suddenly becomes a psychic who “reads bootys”. It’s pretty self-explanatory. Why do you have more questions about it? Customers come into Old Navy, walk up to a sitting mannequin, and display their ass to her. She then waves her hands over the customer’s ass and tells them their fortune. The fortune is usually that they like pants. These amazing ass-based psychic powers were part of a major marketing campaign. Well-paid people trained exactly for this spent millions of dollars to turn a dummy into a butt wizard. Again, most department stores tend to discourage customers waving their asses at store mannequins but not at Old Navy! Other stores suck!

Additional commercial plots I thought were a little weird include the time Kelly jumped out of a cake to celebrate Old Navy’s fifteenth birthday. She was fully clothed but she does sexually discard her puffer vest in Josh’s general direction and then Josh says, “birthday wishes do come true!” It’s the horniest anyone has ever been for a mannequin in a puffer vest. I hope.

There’s also a commercial where a crazed Old Navy customer rips the dress right off of Michelle, leaving her completely naked in front of the other Supermodelquins, and Kelly turns her head a full 180 degrees to see her naked friend. I’d like to think there would have been a marriage shattering romance plot in their future if it weren’t for the untimely demise of the Supermodelquins. Also, I think that Eva’s daughter would have turned out to be half booty reader, half mothman, and they wouldn’t discover it until mysterious large holes started showing up in all the Old Navy jorts.

By far, the strangest thing about the Supermodelquins was the social media aspect of the project. Someone kept track of Facebook and Twitter accounts for all seven adult Supermodelquins. You can only write so many tweets about scarves before you start to fully lose your mind. The Supermodelquins were supposed to be friends but the most interesting thing to do with them online was make them fight. Social media became an unsanctioned mannequin fight club for engagement purposes, and to entertain the marketing interns piloting the Old Navy mascot bang bus.

Kelly was the most adept mannequin at subtweeting the other Supermodelquins. After Heather and Josh broke up, she sent this scorching little insult to zero engagement. Weird, it’s almost like most normal people aren’t going to get super invested in the romantic scandal of a bunch of mannequins. Abnormal people are only mildly interested.

It wasn’t all hate, though. On occasion the Supermodelquins would use social media to sexually harass each other. Here’s Josh taking his frat boy personality to its full 1980s conclusion, again in the hopes of selling tragic backstory sandals for five dollars. I can’t stress enough that the end game of every Supermodelquin’s interaction was supposed to be someone going to Old Navy to purchase something. The equation was, Josh makes a joke about Amy’s giant ornaments, someone sees this, it convinces them to buy a puffer vest.

Josh got more responses on his social media than any other Supermodelquin. If Barker Bones had social media, I’m certain he would have smoked him, but sadly, if Barker did have his own page, it’s been lost to time. From what I can figure out, it seems like he was a fixture on the main Old Navy Facebook page because they posted that Barker would be “going on vacation” when the Supermodelquins campaign ended. Then, they had to fend off a swarm of upsetting comments implying that Old Navy was killing their fake mannequin dog. That’s how rabid the Barker Bones fanbase is. Where were all you Old Navy dog stans when Paco and Magic disappeared!?

The rest of the Supermodelquins did not get the enthusiastic goodbye Barker Bones received. No one was ready to riot for Heather or Wesley. After two years, the Supermodelquins ad campaign ended in the weirdest way possible. All of the supermodelquins started posting about how they were excited to audition for Old Navy’s next ad campaign, and then they all said they failed to make the cut and explained this made them very sad before they logged off the internet forever.

“Might be the last you see of us for a while” is the last post an influencer makes before they fall off of a cruise ship in a thriller movie. None of the Supermodelquins got to tie up dangling plot threads before they were canceled. We never learned if Enrique and Heather officially got together or if the booty reader ever expanded her powers to socks.

Old Navy is ruthless. They created a vibrant mascot community to save their company and when it no longer served their purpose they made sure the public knew they were sad to die. All that remains of this once great mascot empire is Barker Bones. Maybe that’s why people are so drawn to him. Like Stonehenge, Barker Bones is the last remaining artifact of a strange forgotten world, a world where someone with a mannequin fetish ran Old Navy.

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Brandon Garlock, the magical mannequin who comes to life every night just to whip Josh’s ass.

Categories
NERDING DAY

Nerding Day: Black Grimoire App 🌭

As we all know, the one problem with being a dark magic wielder is having to haul around a bulky grimoire full of spells. Sure, we could memorize them, but if we were good at memorizing things, we probably would have become a computer programmer and not a dark wizard. Ah ha, but what if we did both? Someone out there was smart enough to code an iPhone app and also dark wizardly enough to make it an app full of magic spells. That man’s name is Mr. zombie.

That’s right, nestled between your Starbucks and New York Times Gaming App, you too can keep all of the best ancient spells for things like beginner telekinesis, summoning a dark spirit, and cold relief, for free! Yes, this is a free app that will give you the power to summon a dark spirit from hell! You would think that ability would be worth AT LEAST $2.99, but it’s not!

You would also think there would be some kind of background check required to yield the power of demonic ghosts. No, the only requirement for access to this mighty digital tome is that you must be at least twelve years old. Sixth graders simply aren’t ready to unravel the laws of man.

There’s also a serious legal disclaimer on the download page to discourage non-serious magicians. It explains that magic is real, and you should not joke about any of this. Weird that the author thought he would need to preempt the powerful spells in his Black Grimoire with a disclaimer that they are not funny.

Do you think the “please use all spells at your own risk” disclaimer will cover Mr. zombie in the event that a twelve-year-old uses this app to summon an Old God to wipe clean the world of his bully? I worry that Mr. zombie didn’t consult a lawyer before making this app. Otherwise he’d know you can’t distribute telekinesis to 13-year-olds in seven states, and we are absolutely allowed to joke about wizards everywhere but Massachusetts.

The app does make sure to keep its ancient wisdom behind the protection of a mystical login page, complete with a stock photo of Criss Angel’s actual hands logging into the app. This feature is essential because it will prevent your mom from looking at your most viewed spell tab and learning it’s “Succubus Formal Invitation Spell.” As if there would be an informal invitation spell for a succubus, the most formal of fuck monsters. The point is, there’s a right way and a wrong way to ritually text 🍆 to a sex demon.

Let’s deep dive into these spells. Where do they come from? Who wrote them, and what are their spell-writing credentials? Most books on magic love to tell you all about the exploits of the fifth-level astro wizard of the frosting dimension who wrote them. The Black Grimoire app takes a more laid back approach to creating black magic. Most of the spells have no explanation of where they come from, and if I had to guess, I’d say it’s probably Google. There is one spell that comes with details of its creator, and it’s, of course, the succubus spell. It came from Mr. zombie’s supernatural wife. I think he was just sneaking a succubus brag into his app.

No magic book is complete without a supernatural wife name drop. It makes this app so much more authentic. I wish there was more Princess Saaraji Lilith in this app. Most of it is way more boring than the introduction of Mr. zombie’s succubus wife. For instance, there’s a recipe for Wizard tea that does not explain what makes it wizardly. Another name for it would be “tea” because that’s what it is, regular tea with chocolate, honey, and mint. They didn’t even try to make up a reason why it’s magic. They could have at least said it’s best prepared by your supernatural succubus wife.

Just to test my earlier theory, here’s the very first match on Google for “Wizard tea recipe”:

Now, let’s move on to the death spells. Sorry, first, we’ll have to pause for an ad from HelloFresh. That is not a bit; they will advertise anywhere. Although the Black Grimoire is a free app, they have to make money somehow. They can’t give these spells away for free. Normally, you have to pay a whole daughter for real magic, or at least the blood of a daughter-sized orphan. So one thirty-second ad for a food delivery box isn’t too much to ask in exchange for a death spell. Most of the other ads are for apps like this one– insane sadness chum for a stupid person’s idea of a desperate person. There was one for a chat gpt girlfriend app, and one for a psychic app that was probably the side hustle of the chat gpt girlfriend. HelloFresh is the only mainstream company that wasn’t going to let the Grimoire audience slip by.

After I paused to learn about seared sesame tuna over rice, I was finally able to access over twenty death spells. The death spell section is one of the largest on the app. They’ve got all kinds of death, Cursed by Voodoo, Black Death, Death Potion, Blood Star, Bones of Anger Hex, but my personal favorite death spell is the Necrokinesis spell because it is the hardest of all kinesis.

I wanted to learn more, so I Googled “Necrokinesis,” and it looks like Mr. zombie might have done the same thing:

What will you need to learn Necrokinesis? Nothing. The Necrokinesis spell boils down to thinking about killing someone really hard. It’s suspicious because if this was possible, it would happen all the time by accident. There wouldn’t be a living boss or landlord. So let’s try another death spell, hopefully one Mr. zombie didn’t copy from a 4chan post. Maybe something more classic. How about this death potion from 1970 that sounds, frankly, delightful:

This Death Potion is adorable. I think Mr. zombie might have mixed up the death potion recipe and the strawberry shortcake recipe. It’s fine, that’s easy to do, but I think the results are going to disappoint a lot of wizards. It’s important to note that Death Potion isn’t meant to be ingested by anyone. All you have to do is put the ingredients in a pot and simmer them on the stove “for however long you think it needs to cook.” I’ve never made a death potion before and would not trust my judgment on when it’s done. I guess simmer until death occurs, or you’ve reduced Death Potion to a delicious coulis. Honestly, this is such a crazy idea I have no idea how Mr. zombie could have come up with it. The only thing I found when I Googled “death potion” is this:

There’s more to the black Grimoire than sex and death spells. There’s a pretty hefty section on wealth that includes a powerful job-seeking spell that is much more the shit I’m looking for. It’s got candles, visualizations, patchouli oil, and rhyming. Somehow, summoning a job is way cooler than summoning a ghost to bang.

One of the stra– excuse me, I want to just check to see if there are any other job finding spells online we can compare this to. Ah, here’s one:

One of the strangest things about this magic spell book app is that it says this spell was written in 2023, but it sounds like it’s referring to mailing out physical copies of a resume. Did they let a ghost of someone who died in the 1980s write this spell? There aren’t a lot of summoning spells in the app so I kind of doubt it. In fact, most spells offer intangible results like good luck or confidence. There is one spell for hot sex, but it basically calls for you to have hot sex in a circle of salt, which seems like cheating. It’s like having a spell for wealth where one of the ingredients is fifty thousand dollars. If you have the means to do the spell, you’re done!

All you need is a hot sex circle and some candles! I found no trace of this on Google, so Mr. zombie might have invented this one, and good for him.

I’m not sure I would qualify this app as a good replacement for your typical black grimoire. It’s a gray Grimoire at best. It needs to be at least thirty percent more goth to get Satan’s attention. Aside from one hot sex circle, all he did was Google spells for us. This is no different than telling Siri to commit a sin against God. However, if you’re 12+ and promise not to make fun of it, maybe this circle fucker’s Google searches are for you!

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Jeff Orasky, who is the sworn enemy of Mr. zombie — a plagiarized smartphone app white wizard sponsored by Blue Apron.

Categories
LEARNING DAY

Learning Day: Costco Household Almanac

It’s 2024, and we have no gods but Costco. Luckily, Costco was prepared for this eventuality. Did you know that every single month since 1987, Costco has published Costco Connection, a magazine for Costco Members full of normal advice about how humans do things? Paul McCartney, Dolly Parton, and a glass of milk have all graced the cover of this chaotic informational tome.

At first glance, it was my firmest belief that if you ever saw someone reading Costco Connections Magazine, they had a sinister plan. I thought the only reason to read this magazine was to appear unassuming. Or possibly to appreciate how hot they made that glass of milk look on the cover.

“Glup glup glup,” says this wet hunk!

If you’re wondering how Costco could possibly come up with enough content on updated shampoo and Kirkland Signature pet food to fill a magazine, you should know the magazine wasn’t enough. In addition to Costco Connections, starting in 2007 and ending in 2008 Costco also published The Costco Household Almanac; Tips and advice from Costco. Now Costco can really get into the nitty-gritty of your life, advising you on every single aspect of humanity. There is no need to ask questions; Costco has all the answers. Costco has all the questions as well! Costco is destination, Costco is journey, you are Costco. This thing is 200 pages long:

What was so essential that it had to be moved from a quick and timely magazine to a classic, long-form text that would stand the test of time? Amongst the dusty shelves of the Library Of Congress sits The Costco Household Almanac, and that copy begins, of course, with a quote from Ralph Waldo Emmerson and a forward by MaryJane Butters. This is the most Costco combination of people to ever exist. Ralph Waldo Emerson is the Aquaterra Luxury Jacuzzi Tub, and MaryJane Butters is the hotdog and soda combo a man once threatened murder over.

The forward by MaryJane Butters, is of course, incredible. I’m split on whether or not MaryJane Butters is a real person or some sort of Costco golem created specifically to write this forward. I’m pretty sure some dark magic brought organic farmer MaryJane Butters into our reality so she could tell us about the higher moral plane of Costco.

You heard Mrs. Butters, Costco is conducting commerce amongst the Gods. They’re not just out here selling caskets and tubs of Nutella. They’re out here selling caskets and tubs of Nutella, and tubs of Nutella big enough to be used as caskets on a high moral plane. Is your life a mess? Let go and let Costco. They will tell you how to live every single aspect of your life so that you too may one day conduct commerce on their moral plane as well. Save us Costco! What wisdom do you have to share with the masses?

What would I do without you, Costco? Before I let The Costco Household Almanac run my life, my organs were helplessly unlubricated. My spleen was as dry as bone, and my bones were wet for some reason? Now, my doctors say my pancreas is so wet it might slip right out. That’s right, I have to see multiple doctors. That’s how lubed my organs are! Please continue to fix me Costco! Cushion my brain from non-Costco!

Have occasions? Try cards!

I have to respect the opinion of the author of this piece, Robyn Freedman Spizman, one of the foremost gift experts in the country, that I should absolutely bury my friends under the weight of a thousand greeting cards. Who do you think is competing with Robyn for the title of foremost gift expert? The robot who puts Facebook metadata onto shirts? Santa Clause? I bet that chump doesn’t love greeting cards half as much as Robyn. She is the goddamn creator of “Hap Birt”!

Still, I assume the advice in this article is solid because I’ve never seen a happier stock photo of a laughing Grandma. I will bankrupt myself with greeting cards if that’s what Costco thinks I should do because I have faith in the people who made my organs so perfectly moist. Let’s take a pause to absorb all of the good advice Costco has bestowed upon us so far and instead appreciate this absurdly horny ad for a clock radio.

The Costco House Almanac is filled with the subtle desperation of sexually repressed suburban America, but this is probably the most overt expression of it, and it’s brilliant. Imagine that you find yourself willingly flipping through articles about The Best Gift Wrap and How To Reorganize Your Garage Like The Pros, and suddenly you see this hot metropolitan man kicking his one-night stand out at exactly 10:09 in the morning. I want this man’s life, you’d say! I want this man’s clock radio! Once you start to notice the undercurrent of sexual repression in The Costco Household Almanac it’s everywhere, the excessive use of the word mount in the section on flat-screen TVs, the beefy calves of the men in the article on comparing arthritis supplements, The feral look in the eyes of the Sticky solutions lady.

You might think it would be difficult to make Costco sexy, but they did it. At some point in this process, the editor of The Costco Almanac slammed his fist on the table and said, “It’s not sexy enough! I want to see the bottom fifteen percent of a woman’s whole butt in my Costco bible!” And he made it happen.

SMOOTH HUMAN BUTTS: TOUCH AND BE TOUCHED. Anyway, back to the regular life advice Costco has to give us! There’s still tons of good, not at all horny, advice Costco has for us about making our lives better. This is about self improvement. Tell me how to make my life better, Costco!

Ok, that is advice, but, why do we need binoculars? The binoculars article is really long. Is Costco selling a ton of binoculars? Apparently, there’s such a wide variety of binoculars available at Costco they’re concerned some customers will be “overwhelmed by the myriad choices available.” They even sell “digital binoculars, which combine a digital camera with the binoculars” so that you can “capture that special moment.” Definitely not something a pervert would own, why would you even suggest that? These are for bird perverts!

For real, let’s get back to the tips—just the tips! I need wholesome advice on how to wet my organs and buy more greeting cards. Give me something I can work with at Costco.

No, Costco. Happy White Couple Enjoys Rewatching Sex Tape on Sofa Horizontal Layout Photo is not wholesome. I may be losing faith in my new God. The infallible institution of Costco even mocks itself toward the end of The Costco Household Almanac in a way that I find fascinating. They decided to parody their own magazine in the pages of their magazine under the heading “our resident parodist just couldn’t resist…”. Why does the Costco Household Almanac even need a resident parodist? That’s an unnecessary expense, which is very much not in line with the Costco doctrine of commerce on a high moral plane. Also, his parodies are terrible AND contain that strange undercurrent of horny desperation that permeates the entire book.

Costco really said, “I hope you enjoyed our article on mold FAQs. Now grease up a Twister board and get freaky, losers!” It truly embodies everything that is Costco. I’ve realized Costco must be all things to all people. Sure, it’s a store that sells jumbo packs of plain white socks, but it also sells condoms in packs of 100. The important thing to remember is that if you center your life around Costco, you’ll always have plenty of binoculars.

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Supernaught, a fine damp soul with the wettest heart you ever saw.

Categories
UPSETTING DAY

Upsetting Day: The Mascot Handbook 🌭

It’s been a while since we’ve discussed the deeply disturbing history of sports mascots. We’ve covered the cursed lore of the Chicago White Sox mascot before, but little did we know all mascot lore is that magical mix of tragic, hilarious, and oops, uh oh, it’s tragic again. For instance, the man considered baseball’s first mascot was probably driven insane by mascotism, committed to an asylum for loving baseball too much, got tuberculosis in the asylum, and died. Where did I learn that thrilling informational tidbit? The Mascot Handbook, a rundown of all the professional working mascots up to 1982 and their tragic backstories. If you enjoy the bloody tragedy of Game Of Thrones, but with people in better costumes, this is your week!

Let’s start with nature’s first mascot, Charlie “Victory” Faust. He was an overly confident man who told the manager of the Giants that a fortune teller predicted he would pitch for the Giants and they would win the pennant. It turned out that he was so terrible at baseball that it was funny, and The Giants decided to let him on the team, basically gaslighting him into thinking he was really good at baseball. They would even get the other teams in on it and have them pretend not to be able to hit his slow, sad, pitches.

The Giants did win the pennant all three years Charlie was on the team, but he basically annoyed the manager about letting him play too much and was let go. Since he thought he was a great player, he never understood why his baseball career lost traction after the Giants dropped him. Basically, a man with delusions of grandeur was taught that he was absolutely right about how great he was for three years and then suddenly woke up in a world where he was crazy the whole time, and everyone was Truman Showing him into oblivion until he was committed. That’s the warm and fuzzy mascot story The Mascot Handbook starts out with, and it only gets worse from there.

Is anyone shocked that a mentally ill man and hunchbacked batboy were the first mascots American baseball teams could come up with? I’m honestly surprised people didn’t flock to the stadium for the antics of hunchbacked batboy. Why would anyone pursue mascots after the marketing failure of hunchback batboy? Well, for the same reasons they were drawn to hunchback batboy in the first place– the cruel darkness inside Man. Mascot suits gave fans a target to mock, and if you’re from Milwaukee, sometimes bite.

This book will constantly look you in the eye and tell you the worst moment of a mascot’s life as if it’s a cool little tidbit you might like to hear. They file every horrific assault away in the middle of a paragraph about boring mascot bureaucracy, stuff that you might otherwise skim. They’ll say, “Professor Dancy Crab is booked for public appearances by the PR team of The Seattle Starlight. Once, a fan hit him with his car and kept on driving. Didn’t even look back. It wasn’t serious; he has a master’s in theater studies.” The entry for Socceroo is actually darker than this, and I was just trying to emotionally prepare you for it.

Nothing could possibly make that story worse, right? Socceroo was stabbed. A man was stabbed! Well, a teenage boy who thought, “Hey, I bet it would be fun to be a professional masco– oh god, why, why are you stabbing me?” Fortunately, his injuries weren’t serious. It was a light stabbing.

The way this book tried to put a professional spin on Socceroo’s stabbing was frankly unsettling to me. It feels like the people writing it were very pro-mascot but the mascots themselves wanted to warn people to stay away. “No one should dream of mascotting!” The mascots are screaming to us but we can’t hear them from the prison of their fur and feathers. In fact, sometimes people will fight to become mascots even when the team has not asked them to.

There are several stories in this book of people who became team mascots by sheer force of will. Heroes from the bygone age of hunchbacked batboys like Krazy George, Wild Bill Hagy (winner of the University Of Maryland’s Snappin Terp award), Uncle Willy, Dolfan Denny, Crazy Ray, The Big Wheel, and, of course, renowned rainbow wigged Jesus fan, Rock N Rollen.

There are no bits in those names; even the Snappin Terp award is real, even though it’s the most Seanbaby thing I’ve ever heard.

Some regular guys who want to be mascots don’t just put on a silly wig and Jesus shirt and head out into the crowd, though. Multiple fans in this book saw that their team didn’t have a mascot, designed their own suits, and made themselves a stabbing target for the bit! These can’t be cheap suits. Someone put a lot of time and money into creating The Terrible Fan, and in response, The Steelers still chose not to have a mascot for years, probably because they understood the risks.

How much of a burn is it that The Steelers now have a mascot, and it is not The Terrible Fan? It’s some fucking chad named Steely McBeam. Apparently, the big yellow square wasn’t hot enough for The Steelers. They needed a mascot that would test well with the women 20-65 crowd, and by God, they got him. Look at this specimen of a big yellow man.

Steely McBeam is far too hot to be featured in this mascot book, though! The Mascot Handbook is specifically for the freaks and weirdos of pre-1982 American sports. Mascots like Soccerhead, a man with severely impaired vision on roller skates! Now the mascot-related injuries don’t have to come from the crowd at all. They’re baked into the mascot costume itself. Look at this thing. Fucking look at it:

Soccerhead looks like an accidental death on its way to another accidental death. There’s also the prototype for Steely Mcbeam, Yankee Frankie, from the era between man and monster, where they experimented with man-mascots wielding paper mache “man” heads. They hot glued some old shag carpeting from a wet mini-van to Yankee Frankie’s head and unleashed it like a penguin-shaped camera in a penguin colony. Yankee Frankie looks like he has a scarecrow with a trunk full of human organs for sale. He walked so Steely McBeam could take your mom out to dinner.

There is also a mini horse named Touchdown in this book. There’s nothing wrong with Touchdown. He is perfect. I just thought you might like a break from the head horrors, and there’s no way in hell I’m ever going to read a book for this website that includes a teeny tiny horse named Touchdown and not show him to all of you. This is a 1900hotdog guarantee.

Ok, now back to the terrifying freak mascots. Is it just me, or are Ribbie and RooBarb totally Fucking? Why is Roobarb holding Ribbie’s trunk like that? Who told them to do that? This gives me so many uncomfortable questions about what these creatures are and how they bang. The energy of this photograph is sexually menacing at its absolute peak. It doesn’t get worse than this.

You believed me, you fool! Did you think I was going to go all the way through this article without showing you Wild Bill receiving his Snappin Terp award from a University of Maryland cheerleader? Of course, it could get worse—it could always get worse! That is the moral of this website. Have you learned nothing in our years together? I’m disappointed in you.

As haunting as it is being so near an open and unwashed Terp, a single chapter title from this book has stuck in my mind for weeks. It’s like they hired Steven King to do this one chapter title.

It’s a very regular chapter about The Bears’ first mascot, a bear. They didn’t have to call it that, but they decided to freak me out. I’m getting word that three mascots died while I was writing this article in fan-related maulings. Their injuries were not serious, good bye!

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Cheddar Wolf, the tragically devoured former mascot of the Kenosha Milkwolves.

Categories
LEARNING DAY

Learning Day: PraiseMoves 🌭

One of the most important tenets of modern Christianity is spreading the word of Christ’s teaching by whatever methods necessary, and for some people, the best way to spread that word is by having a great ass. How can you get an ass that witnesses for Christ simply by existing while avoiding the sins of yoga? You could, perhaps, try another form of exercise, but what? Crossfit, with all that grunting and sweating, seems pretty sexual. Jogging? Oh, so you’re running away from Christ’s love? Barre fitness, you mean like the barres they hung Christ from? Clearly, all exercise is satanic, so I guess we’ll have to tweak yoga so that it works for The Lord.

Enter Dr. Laurette Willis, founder of PraiseMoves fitness ministry. There are quite a few Christian Yoga franchises, but Dr. Wills’s is different in that it specifies that yoga is in no way yoga because of how satanic yoga is. PraiseMoves is a Christian alternative to yoga that is in NO WAY yoga, but also includes pretty much all of yoga while not being in any way yoga.

Basically, PraiseMoves is yoga for people who still want to be angry after they do yoga. The practice’s website begins with a long rant about how terrible and prolific yoga is. This includes complaints about yoga being taught in schools and an argument that yoga is the “missionary arm of the Hindu religion.”

If I offered a God my sweaty, poorly executed downward dog, they would smite me for sure, and I would deserve it. The fact that no God has ever smited me is proof that yoga moves are not offerings to Gods.

I love this yoga rant because of its 2000s Tumblr blog quality. It feels more like it was written by an angry fifteen-year-old girl than a woman with a PhD in Theology from Oral Roberts University. No, wait, this is exactly what I would expect from someone with a PhD from Oral Roberts University– minimal research and maximum emojis. I can’t believe the fact that Shiva the Destroyer is the “Lord Of Yoga” only earned a frowny face and not a red-colored frowny face. If not all this destroying and yoga, what does Laurette reserve the red frowny face for?

So, now that we’ve established that yoga is, at its core, pure evil, let’s do some yoga. Once again, the Christian Alternative to yoga subtracts exactly nothing from yoga, but it does add Jesus and a tiny smattering of interpretive dance. Several of Dr. Laurette’s PraiseMoves demonstration videos, which she uploads semi-regularly to YouTube, look like they’re guerilla recordings shot inside an Olive Garden.

A huge part of Laurette’s yoga philosophy is that yoga allows you to focus too much on yourself instead of God. If you stop thinking about God for even a single moment, you’ll probably do something crazy like relax. She advises her nearly seven thousand YouTube Subscribers to recite Bible verses as they move through yoga poses to make them think about Jesus. Sometimes she even sings the Bible verses, which makes this musical exercise much less effective. No one ever explains the shape of the pose or holds it for any length of time because they move along to the whims of a woman improvising songs from random Bible words. Essentially, PraiseMoves is yoga with more Jesus and less exercise. As someone who is violently opposed to exercise, I find that there are portions of PraiseMoves that appeal to me.

The other issue with Praise Moves is that the instructors have no personality at all. Fitness instructors are usually super energetic, charismatic people. However, the “fitness ministers” of Praise Moves have the vibe of someone being held against their will. I’m not just saying that because the rustic distressed brown walls of the Olive Garden background read as a captivity basement when the camera pulls in too close.

It seems like the only recruitment requirement for Praise Moves instructors are dead eyes and a healthy fear that Jesus is judging their posture at all times. It’s very clear that they’re not having fun doing this activity. That’s not the point! Sometimes, the camera even pulls close to their face, so you can’t tell what yoga pose they’re doing, but you can see the inner turmoil they’re struggling with as they attempt to do an extended triangle pose without accidentally doing yoga.

Teaching yoga without knowing yoga or doing yoga is a difficult task, but luckily, PraiseMoves trains and certifies instructors in the PraiseMoves system! I was wrong about the minimal requirements. The application notes you might not get accepted and asks instructors to provide their height, weight, marital status, pastor’s phone number, and several essays. The essays include “Describe your faith and basis for your beliefs” and “What activities do you pursue that advance your personal growth.” I put shredding and smoking blunts 4 the lord, and my application was somehow rejected? Lame.

The application also has a super serious denouncement of all that is yoga. If you want to teach both PraiseMoves and yoga, you have to tell on yourself and this box comes with the selection “yes I am willing to teach PraiseMoves and NOT yoga” already helpfully preselected for you. If you choose the option to possibly one day consider doing yoga in the future, Dr. Laurette Willis doesn’t want you anywhere near her Christian consensual yoga dungeon.

When I was exploring the certification section of the PraiseMoves website, I noticed six additional certifications available in the PraiseMoves system. Becoming a PraiseMoves certified alternative to yoga instructor costs $125 the first year and $75 yearly thereafter. The other certifications can be bundled. If you want to get certified in all 7 PraiseMoves exercise classes, it will cost $1250. This at least partially explains the sadness in the eyes of every PraiseMoves instructor. Let’s take a look at some of the other PraiseMoves classes you can get certified in if you have over a thousand dollars and are willing to tell Dr. Laurette Willis your blood type and the approximate location of all of your organs (especially the good ones).

I know what you’re screaming at the computer right now. “HIPHOP2SCRIPTURE LYDIA, Lydia, Lydia look, it says HipHop2Scripture, why isn’t this entire article that you FOOL?” Guys, I hate to break it to you, but if HipHop2Scripture does exist, Dr. Laurette has very wisely decided never to publicly post anything about it. Was I willing to go undercover as Count Hamish VonDunks and get certified in both PraiseMoves and HipHop2Scripture? Of course! That’s the kind of journalism you pay for at 1900hotdog.com. Unfortunately, my application was rejected for mysterious reasons. Ok, it might be because the application asked me to include a photo of myself, and I sent this.

I was able to get my hands on some footage of PraiseKicks (Kickboxing with the Word), which was 99% regular kickboxing. This is a huge missed opportunity. An army of women training to kick the devil’s ass should be radical. Unfortunately it’s a lot harder to skip explaining how the moves should be performed in kickboxing so there’s minimal space to insert Jesus.

Taking secular exercise systems and slapping the word Christian on them seems like an effective, low cost business model, but there are a few people on YouTube who are mad that PraiseMoves still uses the poses from yoga. One woman said that she tried a class, and someone else in it who had been “delivered from yoga” previously told her the moves were still yoga moves and, therefore, still satanic. Sadly, there are only so many shapes you can twist your body into, and it turns out a lot of those shapes are satanic.

What I have learned from this is if you sit the wrong way, the dark lord will hear your call. Satan is just waiting for you to stretch. Beware the dangers of exercise!

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Zach and Eva. He’s the praise; she’s the moves.

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