Author: Seanbaby

Categories
UPSETTING DAY

Upsetting Day: Ricky Goes to Church! 🌭

“RICKY GOES TO CHURCH!” said the front of the VHS box. “RICKY GOES TO CHURCH!” said the back of the VHS box. “Sure,” I said.

When you come up with a title as good as RICKY GOES TO CHURCH! you don’t need a tagline or a description. And sure, it’s about a puppet named Ricky that goes to church, but I’m making it sound too complicated. Ricky is a generic wooden dummy wearing a baseball football sweater that says “ALL AMERICAN SPORTS.” It’s what an AI would generate if you forced it to look at the same tax attorney obituary 1000 times, but still less than that. RICKY GOES TO CHURCH! is the Christian knockoff of your first impression of the VHS box, only whiter.

If you’ve never been to white Christian church, it involves a lot of hymns, which are dull songs read aloud by the bored and uninterested. It’s very much worse than anything, and probably why the box for this only mentions how a puppet is here. Because RICKY GOES TO CHURCH!  opens with Geraldine Ragan and Pastor Doctor Larry Davis moaning a sad poem about Jesus Christ’s love. It’s the kind of music that would make you run to the nearest phone and scream, “Fredrich, it’s Kevin! Your cousin, Kevin Nietzsche. You know that externalized expression of suffering you were looking for? Well, listen to THIS!”

You’re not going to like this, but after the song, Pastor Doctor Larry Davis says to the puppet, “Ricky, while we was gettin’ spiritual, I saw you was flirtin’ with Abigail.” He speaks in a sing-songy Kentucky church accent that is both gay-coded and extremely homophobic-coded.

The puppet does not deny this as Geraldine’s mouth clearly form his words, “I love that girl.” It turns out Abigail is a real person, but not one of the performers. She’s a little girl in the audience, and after half an uncomfortable minute, they finally get a camera on her.

This does not seem like part of a planned bit, and Ricky has no jokes prepared for this type of crowd work. Pastor Doctor Larry just went off script to cock block a puppet rather than praise God. It’s a bold way to open your direct-to-consumer VHS Christian puppet show. “She’s about your age,” Dr. Davis continues. It’s not for me to tell anyone how to worship, but this sexual harrasment of a little girl went on so long I opened Google and learned that when they filmed this (1997), Ricky would have been about 34 years old. “Oh, come on. He’s a doll. He’s only playing a character who is nine,” you might say. “Are you fucking hearing yourself,” I might reply.

I’m not exaggerating when I say they then talk about the weather in the nearby state of Alabama for several minutes. Geraldine says “the dogwoods are just about kinda over right now,” and then turns to the crowd to tell them the dogwood is “one of her favorite, favorite trees.” I don’t know why I put that down in my notes, but the silent way the crowd ignored this information felt like a win. It felt like there was still a bit of sanity left in these people’s lives who could clap for a man and woman using a puppet to flirt with a child, yet still know not to give a shit when some lady has a favorite, favorite tree.

It turns out Geraldine rating her favorite trees wasn’t small talk, but a planned entry point into a discussion about the crucifixion, where Jesus was tortured to death on a cross made out of tree. With her own mouth and not the puppet’s, she points out, and I quote, “There is life in tree.” With the cheerful tone she might use to deliver hot chocolate, she explains how the cross that caused our Lord such unspeakable agony was made from dogwood, a fact the tree is still embarrassed about to this day. “I LOVE YOU,” the puppet says to Doctor Pastor Larry, unprompted and unrelated to anything. “oh man that was fucking weird,” my own notes assure me.

Geraldine tells a story about how Ricky used to carry a stuffed dogwood tree with him, pointing to his pocketless American sports pastime sweater. “You LOST IT!?” prompts Doctor Pastor Larry, now back on script. “Yeah, I lost it when I lost the Lord’s quarter,” delivers the puppet. Larry throws his head back and laughs. I don’t know what it means. None of this is how humans talk to themselves or their gods. I feel like a ghost hunter listening for voices in radio static. If everyone on this tape turned to look at me and chanted, “You’re the puppet now, you’re the puppet now,” I would nod my wooden head because what else could this be but a puppet trap?

I should mention Geraldine isn’t a great ventriloquist. She’s better than she needs to be here in this half-remembered echo of Earth behavior, but it’s weird she’s chosen to do this with her life. It’s not only that her lips move with every syllable, but her head bobs around and she talks with her hands. For a good amount of her act, it looks like nothing more than a talkative lady waiting for her ventriloquist friend to finish in the bathroom.

I obviously misheard the puppet’s punchline of “I lost the Lord’s quarter,” so I rewound the tape several times to hear it again and again. But no, my ears kept telling me the wooden boy lost his stuffed dogwood tree when he lost the Lord’s quarter. “Oh well, I guess I’ll never know,” I thought. I let the tape play and heard Doctor Pastor Larry continue, “Ricky, you’ve gotta be a good boy tonight.”

“What are you gonna do if I’m good?” asks Ricky, in the same tone you’d use with a woman you paid to stomp on your balls.

Larry holds up fifty cents and tells the puppet he can have it for being a good boy, but he has to promise to later give one of the quarters to God. Larry drops one of them and Ricky laughs.  “That’s God’s quarter,” the puppet shrieks, taunting him and Him. It’s insane, sure, but it solves the mystery of what Ricky meant when he said he lost the Lord’s quarter! Don’t you see? Ricky was making a callback to… this spontaneous moment that hadn’t happened yet? And… no, wait, that doesn’t explain how the puppet l-lost its tree pillow… here? In this future? Oh no. Oh no, I think the tape can hear me questioning it.

Ricky does a long series of quarter gags. He makes Larry hold up a quarter with one hand and two fingers with his other hand. “You know what that is? A quarter past two.” The crowd laughs. He tells Larry to stick them to his forehead. “You know what that is? Head quarters.” The crowd loves it. He then asks Larry to pound on his microphone with a quarter. “You know what that is? A quarter pounder.” The crowd explodes. This is what these Ricky maniacs came to see, but I can’t even look at it. I find it disgusting. I’ve never seen entertainment of lower value. If Corey Feldman sang Laffy Taffy wrappers at the Jonestown massacre I couldn’t be more disappointed in a performer or an audience. Then Ricky says, “I been trainin’. I’ve been doin’ karate,”  and suddenly the video has my full attention.

Why did it bring up karate? This is a puppet who calls back to improv lines said ten minutes into the future being piloted by a woman who thinks tree pillows are a relatable hobby. I truly have no idea what to expect next. “I’ve been doin’ so much karate I can even beat up some people,” says the goddamn thing.

This is not a case of his ventriloquist losing her mind again. In fact, I’m starting to think not a single line of this incoherent gibberish has gone off-script. Because Larry pulls out a piece of paper and says, “I saw a list of people you can beat up! Mickey Mouse. You can beat up Mickey Mouse.” Where in the goddamn fuck are you going with this, Ricky?

Larry keeps reading the list of people whose ass Ricky could kick. “Donald Duck. Minnie Mouse. Cinderella. Snow White. And Barney.”

Ricky stops him. “Barney, he already got beat up.”

I’m not leaving anything out. For a very long time this pastor reads a list of cartoons, mostly women, this doll could fuck up with its karate. Then he adds, “and Danny Nailer.”

You’re probably wondering, “Who is Danny Nailer?” Guys, it’s another child in the audience. We’re over halfway through with this act they recorded for retail sale and Doctor Pastor Larry is still doing uniquely-personalized-for-YOUR-corporate-retreat crowd work. And there’s no payoff. The camera never cuts to Danny Nailer’s reaction. Maybe the little bitch ran out when he heard this karate puppet was gunning for him, but the point is we are 15 minutes into this and not a single coherent thing has happened. It’s like a mad artist wanted to deconstruct the very concept of performance by removing all meaning and structure from it. It’s such aggressive nonsense every detail skitters into the shadows of my brain like faces in a nightmare. Like puppets in a fading flashlight beam.

Speaking of, the puppet abandons the bit so his operator can groan a song about a strange man who gives her water in the desert. It’s probably Jesus, sure, but all meaning is three allegories deep and it’s hard to understand a woman singing in Elephant Seal. It is not a duet, but Doctor Pastor Larry Davis fills every moment of silence with the word “Amen.”

To be clear, Brother Larry does not add what I counted to be forty seven “Amens” in any kind of rhythm. He absent-mindedly mutters them like he doesn’t know his microphone is on. Sometimes the puppet will answer back with an “Amen” of its own. It’s singularly weird beyond my ability to describe. This video existing is less likely than all of this being something I think is happening while my restrained body screams, “It’s hot dog upsetting day, and the doll boy says Amen! Warn Danny Nailer of its karate!”

Anyway, it’s over. It’s been enough. After the song, brother Larry tells someone named Bill to get Ricky’s suitcase. Ricky pleads not to be put away. He openly blasphemes, looking up to hear the word of God and telling Bill that God wants him in the choir room. He screams and begs and finally looks Brother Pastor Doctor Larry dead in the eye and says…

Geraldine starts to fold Ricky up and put him in the suitcase while he struggles. While he squeals in pain. She sits back down, but we don’t know why since she’s not one of those ventriloquists who can talk while her puppet begs for its life. They repeat this many more times– her getting up to put Ricky in the box, him losing his fucking shit, and then both of them sitting back down. Prince would look at this performance and say, “Jesus Christ, this is like fifteen too many encores.” Ricky wasn’t built for this type of violence, and at one point his right foot snaps off.

The puppet looks up to the Heavens again and says, “What’s that, God? God said to stay out.” Geraldine knows better than to listen when one of her puppets is talking to God, so she jams him one final time into the box while Larry laughs. After 30 minutes of watching his canned laughter I can tell when Brother Doctor Larry is legitimately tickled by something, and he is having the best time watching this little puppet fucker get smashed into a suitcase.

At about six full minutes, “putting the boy in the box” is by far the longest bit in the routine. This gave me a lot of time to think, and I started wondering if this “please don’t put me in the suitcase, I’m alive” thing was a standard ventriloquist gag. Because it feels like it must be a cliche. Did Geraldine pull this directly from the “sample routines” section of a ventriloquism how-to book? Maybe. But that kind of research could only be done by, I don’t know, a lunatic who had an extensive ventriloquism section in their home library.

So anyway, on page 41 of 1987’s Ventriloquism for the Total Dummy (Everything You Need to Know and Do to Be a Ventriloquist (Real Dummy Included!)), ventriloquist author Dan Ritchard explicitly says not to do this to your puppet. Mainly because it scares children, and if a man living alone with 300 dolls and 301 tuxedos tells you something scares children, take his word for it.

There is some controversy around this subject. In 2010’s The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Ventriloquism, ventriloquist author Taylor Mason suggested wrestling a belligerent puppet into a suitcase was “a wonderful opportunity for humor.”

So Taylor says go ahead, even if it may be downright scary for kids. No, especially if it may be. However, Taylor Mason may not be the leading ventriloquist authority on this. For instance, in the same book, in a section called “Where to Get Material,” Taylor’s first suggestion is “Steal It.” So it’s possible he’s a hack. Shit, he might have even stolen this idea from Ricky.

So a doll refusing to be put away is either a classic bit or an industry taboo. Maybe the rules are different for Christian puppets? The only way to know would be if someone had a section in their library labeled “Puppets, Christian.” Ludicrous. Absurd.

So anyway, I looked it up in 1975’s Puppets go to church by married puppet authors, Wilma and Earl Perry.

All I found inside were 110 pages, completely blank except for the words “let Ricky out.” Oh, Ricky, that reminded me– I was watching a video about him going to church. I looked up just in time to see Geraldine had finished sealing him in the suitcase and was receiving her standing ovation.

After 25 minutes, 24% of which was putting a doll away, Ricky’s trip to church was over– a full 31 minutes and 26 seconds less than the “Total Playing Time” promised by the back of the box. There will never be anything which fulfills less purpose and with such strangeness as RICKY GOES TO CHURCH. I can already feel it clawing its way into my irretrievable memories. You and I won’t remember what this means, but if you’re reading this, don’t let the puppet out.

Which puppet?

What’s a puppet?

…
This article is dedicated to our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Neophont, who never resists, who is a good puppet, who knows the box is home. Box is not punishment. Box. Punishment.

Categories
FUCKING DAY

Fucking Day: Nude BBQ

To view this content, you must be a member of 1900HOTDOG's Patreon
Unlock with Patreon
Already a qualifying Patreon member? Refresh to access this content.
Categories
PODCASTING DAY

Podcasting Day: The Dirt Bike Kid… with Jason Pargin! 🌭

The year was 1985. The kid was dirt bike. The rest became history.

Listen here or wherever you get podcasts to hear us discuss all this and nothing else with the author of (now available for pre-order at Amazon, B&N and Bookshop) If This Book Exists, You’re in the Wrong Universe, Jason Pargin!

Thank you to all our listeners for standing on the edge of love with us. Review us on Podcasts! Stroke us on Fender!

NEW MERCH ATTACK!

The PoxCo Store sells pint glasses now! Finally, you can put your liquids in us, and then we will put them back in you! That’s the best way to phrase that!

Podcast illustrated by Brett Ellefson

Categories
UPSETTING DAY

Upsetting Day: Martial Signing 🌭

How did this DVD get in my home? It arrived in every room at once, clutched in a cleanly severed human hand with my fingerprints. It had an unidentifiable smell and it hurts to look at. If I stand more than five feet from it, I can’t remember it or remember it. When I tried to look it up I found it is not available anywhere videos are sold and forces beyond my understanding have removed all information about it from the Internet. I do not believe me when I say, “Here is a real DVD that exists: Introduction to Martial Signing.”

This certainly can’t be what it looks like, you must be saying. This certainly can’t be “American Sign Language for Self-Defense,” you madman. You fucking liar. And maybe you’re right. Maybe this isn’t happening.

The video starts with a message from Linda Russell, President of the Wisconsin Association of the Deaf. She silently explains not what this is, but how interesting it was to her at the 2001 annual conference. “It drew the attention of many deaf individuals,” she says. “They couldn’t get enough,” she adds. Right, but what is it, Linda? It’s as if even she, president of the Wisconsin deaf, can’t bring herself to form the words “GUYS, WHAT THE FUCK, ARE YOU TELLING ME THIS IS SIGN LANGUAGE KARATE?”

As the title credits roll, we see sensei Matt in action. An elderly man shoves an RV park manager into a hotel Pepsi machine, and I don’t speak sign language very well, but I believe he replies, “give me your invisible hat, goodbye.” In Martial Signing, this is a killing blow. Sensei Matt, PhD, then signs “Fuck he’s dead, oh fuck” and flees the scene. Without his Pepsi.

So whether you thought this was going to be sheer insanity, terrible karate, or some kind of weird joke, you were right. The very first move we are shown is how to improperly apply a ponytail to a man dying of unrelated causes. Seriously, though; that hug he’s missing is the ASL word for “fight.” Which means what you think it means: these are sign language battle cries and karate attacks made simultaneously with the same lethal hands.

You have to understand, like magically killing a hotel guest with the word for “fight,” this video is everything at the same time. It is awesome and tragic and useless and inspiring and… you still don’t believe that I’m not making it up. Okay, let me see what I can uncover…

That quote is from a 2002 issue of Black Belt Magazine, one of the only two only known mentions of Martial Signing on our earth. It was documented on the martialsigning.com web page, which was abandoned about six years ago. As far as I know, the online store never worked, so I had to get a copy by mailing a $24.95 check to Matt himself in New Jersey. He was very polite and asked if I was deaf. Maybe because, according to that Black Belt Magazine quote, he thinks talking with your hands translates directly to tearing faces off with them. I’m not sure he’s right. Not only because that’s stupid as shit, but because I looked up his karate instructor.

Matt was a student of George Dillman’s pressure-point karate, and credits him on the DVD. If you’re not familiar, George Dillman is a many-time exposed fraud who claims to be able to knock people out without touching them, but it only seems to work on students who have been paying a man $200 a month to learn how to knock people out without touching them. Anyone who can look at George Dillman and think, “Jedis aren’t real, but hold on maybe this is one,” probably shouldn’t be taken seriously. But on that note, I fucking DARE YOU to take this seriously.

The philosophy behind this fighting system adapted from grift into deaf and then back into grift, is to use the muscle memory you already have from sign language to attack so you don’t have to learn how to chop or punch. So with that in mind, here’s how you battle your way out of an ambush by utilizing your natural instinct to say, “Welcome, Hello!“

I should mention by this point in the video, Matt has spent five minutes explaining martial arts. Not his martial arts, just martial arts in general. All that stuff about utilizing ASL muscle memory was from an article in a 2001 issue of the deaf newspaper, Silent News. Matt tells us, for the third time, how our attacker will be bigger and stronger, but we will use our superior intellect and senses to attack his “weaknesses.” Matt, if I’m your intended audience I can’t hear my enemies coming, am smaller than all of them, and only learned what “fighting” was 30 seconds ago. This “Welcome, Hello!” move better be amazing.

So you use the word “welcome” to bash their arm, paralyzing them. And then you use the word “hello” to wave their face into the ground. The only thing I’m leaving out are the awkward pauses and the lucky break of having an attacker with off switches on their arm and forehead. He does this move once, then replays it in slow motion, then again at full speed. Martial artistically, I’ve never seen anything like it. If you did this move on my four-year-old, she would thank you for helping her get out of her jacket and ask you why you’re such a pussy.

He’s off to a rocky start, but Sensei Matt, PhD is about to turn things around. Because after he demonstrates the arm-bonking, face pushing power of “Welcome, Hello!“, Matt moves on to the devastating “I Arrest You.” I know it may get confusing to have the wrong title in every gif, but I wanted to preserve the stunning transition effects of Introduction to Martial Signing.

Again, Matt opens with a speech about how much bigger than us our attacker is going to be. But he has some good news: “No matter how large an attacker is, their finger is always going to be smaller than your arm.” So what you’re going to do if someone points at you with a finger is point to yourself, grab their finger, and then point at them. This is, kind of, how you sign “I arrest you.” Take him away, officers. One count of pointing while being a little bitch.

Next up is “Love, Push.”

This one is easy. If someone’s shoving you, catch their wrists and use the ASL word for “love” to cross their arms. Matt explains how doing this will cause your attacker to, for a second, not be able to tell which hand is which. And it’s in that moment of confusion when they are looking down at two wads of fingers they don’t recognize, you “push” them. And as luck would have it, the sign language word for “push” is pushing. So to recap, if someone shoves you, no fuck that, you shove them. And it’s all thanks to the reflexive way the hard-of-hearing sign “Love, Push” at rude people.

Another important thing to know about this video is Matt walks the viewer through his reasoning behind each phrase. In fact, he spends much more time on this than he does on the moves themselves. In this case, he tells us how in martial arts, if a person is attacking you they are “sick.” So you give them love to “heal” them. Then you push them away because it didn’t work? It’s more than a stretch. It’s like watching a Zack Snyder fan represent himself in divorce court. So for each martial science move, Matt executes an attack that won’t work adapted from sign language words changed too much to be recognizable meant to form a phrase related to the situation only through a rambling magician’s generous interpretation. I’ve never seen anything so proudly confused about as many things as Martial Signing, and I’m an American.

Next up is Matt’s signature move, “You’re a Monster.”

The ASL sign for “monster” is to make kitty cat claws with both hands, and I already know what you’re thinking– my god, that’s the perfect way to grab a human head and slam it into the ground. This is an attack most people with heads and necks would call “optimistic.” Once again, Matt seems to have devoted more time to making this shaky premise work than he did on the actual technique. But to his credit, he really nailed it with this one. I’ll let him explain it in his own words: “If somebody attacks you, they’re a monster. So I’m going to call them… A MONSTER.” I would tell Matt he’s a genius, but I’m worried after his teachings, signing the word would shatter my own skull. Speaking of me, I once again promise I’m not making any of this up.

Next let’s learn “Grow Up and Be Nice.”

Sensei Matt, doctor of biostatistics, gives his full academic explanation of how he came up with the Grow Up and Be Nice move: “If somebody attacks you, it’s not a very mature thing to do.” During the first step, “grow up,” you lift your hand to slap them in the forehead. Then you “nice,” by sliding one palm over the other. It doesn’t sound like much, but if you do this while one palm is still on your opponent’s face, it should pop their head off. Grow Up and Be Nice utilizes the fundamental martial arts tenet of applying a very small amount of pressure to the hardest part of the human body and then doing something equally gentle while hoping your enemy stops attacking to see how it ends.

This next sign language karate move is going to sound like cheating because it’s simply called “Boxing” and the ASL word for boxing is boxing. And guys, boxing is punching! I think this one is going to work!

Leave it to Matt to take “as many punches as you want” and turn it into “one harmless forearm bash against our bully’s chest.” He doesn’t even give an elaborate origin story for this one. He only says, and I quote, “We’re going to do now is box. And you can… box.“

This move haunted my thoughts for days. How could someone with a full human skeleton conceive of this and think it would work? It’s not even a pressure point attack– you’re hitting him with the entire meat of your arm. It’s almost specifically the least amount of pressure a human body can produce with an attack. Then I remembered the words of Sensei Matt who once said, “A wise man once said, aim small miss small. Aim big, miss big. Somebody grabs you and you go to punch him in the chest and you miss… … chances are you won’t hit anything. However… if you aim for a small point on the chest and you miss, chances are you’ll still hit something. So aim small, miss small.“

I think he’s saying a point-blank-range chest punch is hard to land, and so is a finger poke to a hidden pressure point, but if you miss the pressure point, you’ll still poke one of the other pressure points. And what is a forearm other than hundreds of finger pokes going off at the same time against all of the chest’s secret weak spots? It’s like when football players evacuate their bowels, go unconscious, cum, and die after every insignificant impact. Anyway, we now know Matt is confused about at least one of the following: chests, sizes, aiming, points, or hitting. We’re ready to put it all together with “Not a Good Night.”

Matt is now implementing every aspect of sign language and pressure point karate — the two pillars of self-defense. He says, “Somebody grabs your wrist, we’re going to manipulate… the wrist joint. Somebody grabs your wrist, you’re going to tell them, hey, this is not a good night.” You pronounce this by swatting their wrist, causing it to break? He warns several times this technique is very dangerous, and sigh, let me try to explain why.

Matt was taught by George Dillman, discredited wizard, that slapping a body part sends the signal “this body part is in danger.” This same signal also tells the muscles around it to relax so the part in danger can be easily broken off? If there is any medical or karate data to support bones splintering when you slap them, it was not given and anyone with body parts can debunk it at home by missing a high five. It’s weird I’m this much smarter than them. I mean, deaf people have bones. Karate students have bones. I guess it’s sort of nice when you think about it because it means no matter how goddamn stupid or wrong Sensei Matt has been, no one in his life has ever told him. Anyway, let’s learn how to kill someone with the sign language word for “Music.”

Music uses more “joint manipulation” but we’re rubbing instead of slapping. First grab your enemy’s arm by signing “common sense” in ASL. Matt helps you remember this by saying, “It’s common sense to play some music.” And why not? Anyone sticking to this plan is going to die; you might as well let your murderer be haunted by the mystery of your final words.

I learned from Sensei Matt there’s a pressure point “like half an inch up from the elbow” that generates incredible pain when you rub it. You can try it now if you have the courage to feel 1.2 times the normal amount of arm-rubbing agony. Matt’s attacker is obliterated by it. The mighty pressure point master throws him down with an elbow wiggle and masturbates the sign language word for “music” into his tricep while glaring into the camera. We are next.

Next up is a move called “I Give You My Money” because everything about this is just the fucking best.

Matt levels with the viewer. “Suppose somebody wants your money. Best thing to do is give it to them.” He’s right. Not everyone’s sleeves are short enough to give you access to an elbow wiggle. Sometimes the safest move is to “give” your mugger what they’re asking for. Too bad for them, because in sign language “give” is pronounced “BITCH SLAP TO THE BACK OF YOUR NECK.”

The “you” and “my” and “money” part of this phrase aren’t really used. The little phrases were already something between pointless and counterproductive but now they’re being ignored completely! You’ve made it this far, Matt. Stick to the premise. I think I speak martial sign language well enough now to know the better phrase to use against this guy was “Grow Up and Boxing Boxing Boxing Boxing GIVE! You. Boxing!“

Matt’s next phrase is only the word “Break.” 

This is somehow Matt’s dumbest yet best move yet. Someone approaches you, so you sign “break” while you break their pinky. It’s the same thing Steven Seagal does to you if he thinks you’re holding a subpoena. Matt says one thing to look out for, and this is real, is how the human nervous system will adjust to pain quickly, but you can outsmart it by wiggling their pinky for a while after you shatter it. I understand all the reasons you should never tell a hard-of-hearing person, “Are you fucking listening to yourself?” but Matt clearly would have benefited from that here.

This is kind of the danger in becoming an expert on something that doesn’t exist like pressure point karate — you can keep speculating on and adding more made-up things to it, and it feels like you’re gaining deeper expertise when in fact you’re getting further and further from reality. Then one day you look around and realize you’re doing Star Wars powers and using sign language to poke elbow chakras and you’re having your advanced students incorporate pinky wiggling because only they can be trusted with it. I’m making it sound like I don’t like it, but this nonsense clearly rules. We should all live our lives like Sensei Matt– lost in a world of imagination and incapable of hurting anyone even if we tried.

The last move is called “Remember Love” which sort of looks like you’ve hugged someone too slowly so they fell asleep. The best Matt could do to link the phrase to the attack was babble, “Remembering that a person attacking you is sick, we’re going to tell them to… remember love.” So let’s skip this one. It would get you killed, and for nothing. Let’s instead go to the surprise guest after the credits. Because like all good superhero movies, Introduction to Martial Signing has a post-credits sequence where a surprise guest appears.

It’s Linda Russell! The president from earlier! Throwing Matt into the carpet by his face with the power of sign language and calling his dead body a monster! I can express my thoughts on this only one way:

…
This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme, Bim Talzer: who killed an entire biker gang by singing Stan Bush’s Fight to Survive with his hands.

Categories
PODCASTING DAY

Podcasting Day: The 1990s Obsession with Virtual Reality… with Tom Reimann! 🌭

The people of the ’90s knew a world would one day exist within ours– a world where love was blobbing together into one big goo and everything was a game except when you died. Accessing data would be as simple as marching a you-shaped avatar through endless halls of filing cabinets. We invited Gamefully Unemployed and 1900🌭‘s Tom “Cyberman” Reimann to help navigate this shitty and erotic landscape we’re still trying to create 30 years later.

If you consent to discussing these virtual realms with us, please cyber-confirm by entering morphspace and making love to us.

Now that our goos are one, listen here! Or wherever you get your Dogg Zzone 9000! Learn the difference between boners and boobs the Jeff Fahey way! Hear Sean try to describe the entire plot to 1994’s Disclosure starring Michael Douglas and Dennis Miller! It did not age well in more ways than the VR treadmill interface. Like and review! Buy our goods! Tell the others of our 🌭 hype!

Categories
FUCKING DAY

Fucking Day: Don Diebel’s Blog Tragedy 🌭

In 2018, on a website almost certain to crash while trying to display it, I wrote an exhausting analysis of the career of seduction artist, Don Diebel. Then I found a book on picking up strippers he secretly wrote under a different name. Then we covered him on our award-willing podcast, the Dogg Zzone 9000. Don has been publishing books about fruitlessly bothering women for over 40 years and I have documented all of them. But listen: he also has a blog. Don Diebel has been dutifully publishing his public humiliation and sexual harassment tips online for over 12 years. And we’re going to read some.

It’s going to get weird. Problematic, mysterious, and frustrating, but mostly just so fucking weird. Let’s start in 2016 with his tips on, oh man… Picking Up Drugged or Drunk Topless Dancers.

The thing about Don Diebel is none of his advice is good and he’s never had a relationship with a woman. In all my studies, I found only a few anecdotes about his dating history and they were all obviously fake. His dating advice is mostly to leap in front of women until one of them turns out to be horny or somewhere her screams can’t be heard. If you were a coroner and met Don Diebel, he would get a little smile and hiss about your job’s perks.

Don knows nothing about how humans or their world work, and that includes the attendance or operation of strip clubs. He has written several guides on “seducing” sex workers, “outsmarting” drink minimums, “circumventing” state and local ordinances, and almost every word of them would get you kicked out or arrested. For instance, the tip above is basically “go to the strip club and hope one of the girls is high enough to shove into your trunk. Test this by creeping in right before they close and begging each of the dancers to do something illegal with their vagina for free. I’m America’s #1 Singles Expert.”

A few months later, for 0 Likes and with a watermarked stock photo, Don shared his tips for dating “Centerfold Type of Topless Dancers.” He suggests, maybe try giving them things? Asking every single one of them for a date? That’s it. That’s how you go out with a super hot girl from “America’s #1 Singles Expert.” And, of course, there’s no advice dumber than that. Those tips aren’t expert advice on how to score; they’re an idiot family’s second and third guesses on Family Feud after “giant hog.” But this is all actually lower effort than you think because this blog post was taken verbatim from a book he wrote 25 years ago. This is page 18 of HOW TO PICK UP TOPLESS DANCERS, a masterpiece he wrote in 1996 under the pen name Derek Evans, and I’m not doing a bit. I just looked it up.

If he’s still handing out this ignorant ass entry-level advice, it means he’s asked out every stripper in every bar he’s still allowed in, and Don Diebel still hasn’t gotten past the handshake part of a relationship. The most frustrating part of reading Don Diebel’s seduction tips is seeing a man whose greatest aspiration is finding a magic flute that paralyzes women and realizing you’re starting to feel sad for him.

Let’s skip ahead a couple months.

Okay, so let’s think about this. Don Diebel is maintaining a blog with stolen art and no engagement where he reposts the same ancient, useless dating advice every few months. Has he automated this? Did he mail his books to Bangladesh and tell them to turn them into a website, any website? It seems like that’s what this is, but I feel like I would have heard about it on the news if a Bangladeshi click farmer suddenly scored with hundreds of centerfold topless dancers right out of the pages of Playboy.

Let’s jump ahead a month.

Take it from Don Diebel, world’s most topless-dancer-rejected man, you wouldn’t want to go out with them anyway. This is also taken verbatim from his book on picking up strippers and gives a nice window into his suffering. He has dedicated his life to this one thing, can’t do it, and if he thinks about it too long he realizes he wouldn’t want to anyway. This post is also solid evidence Don has never gotten further with a stripper than getting yelled at for following her to her car. He says they’re “irresponsible and undependable,” but how? Why? I feel like if a person had ever gone on a single date with a sex worker at any point in their entire life, they would have at least one personal anecdote to support an opinion like this. The backstory here, if there’s even any truth to it, is probably that Don Diebel invites strippers to things and they politely say, “Sure, maybe,” and then he goes there and waits until he’s cranky.

“This is why I hate dating centerfold type of topless dancers!” he screams at the hostess explaining he needs to either order or let another diner have the table. “Irresponsible! Undependable!“

Let’s see if responsible and dependable Don came up with some original material in 2017.

Don Diebel hadn’t gotten a like or a comment on his blog in over four years, so it would be weird if he was putting effort into this. Still, this seems beyond the scope of mere laziness. He is copying and pasting passages from his topless dancer book that reference other chapters of the book. It’s a blog on the Internet and the words say “in this book.” It’s a picture of a butt above the advice “Don’t act horny at a strip club– the women will appreciate how you are there to distract them from their source of income which they hate. After they are drugged, reveal you were secretly horny the whole time. Maybe the most horny.” My point is, Don Diebel might have been killed and replaced by his sex robot.

I was joking earlier about how Don Diebel has never gotten past the handshake part of a relationship with a woman. But this man has devoted the last four decades to the singular pursuit of poontang, and it’s suspicious that by far –BY FAR– the most detailed instructions he has ever given is about how to shake someone’s hand. He shakes hands like he’s certain he’ll one day locate the secret off switch somewhere on a stripper’s palm. If he was in the movie Groundhog Day, he would only have one plan: shake Andie Macdowell’s hand every morning and then kill himself and reset until he found the sex way to do it.

He posted this in 2017! I will never get over how after an entire lifetime of seduction, Don Diebel is now an elderly virgin who thinks shaking hands with topless dancers is panty-dropping wisdom. It’s like a retirement speech where someone says, “I never really worked here. I just sat at a desk one day and no one made me leave. I don’t even quite get what you guys do here. But I do know how to make the perfect sandwich: two pieces of bread and your favorite middle.”

You know what? Let’s do a creepy one.

If you were writing a screenplay, this is how you would tell the audience someone was a murderer. Don Diebel is suggesting you sit by yourself and rehearse your smile for topless dancers. Methodically practice a false display of friendliness for the last person in the world who would appreciate it. And did Don Diebel explain what a frown means there at the end? Don, who did you write this for? Horny killers who don’t know how faces work? You’re 75 years old, Don. You’ve been pursuing this goal your entire life, and the only thing you’re an expert on is making faces at women paid to be there.

Do you have any advice for picking up naked women beyond ordinary human behavior? Like say the topless dancer hasn’t sensed the darkness masterfully concealed behind your handshake and smile. How do you flirt?

So you stare at them, melting them with a special look you’ve practiced in a mirror, which they will find impolite, unless they are dancing. Got it. I will go into the strip club (right before they close (because that’s when the girls are drugged)) and look directly at each one of them, always smiling. Holy shit, I was sort of making fun of him, but I think they’re going to love this.

He knows this can’t be true, and he’s seen it not work over the course of his life, but Don Diebel is still positive strippers are impressed, nay wheted, by men who come to the bar looking for free sex instead of paid titillation. Like she’s going to say, “Sir, there’s a two drink minim– what? You’re only here to ask me on a date? Oh, a thousand times please! You’re one in a million, grinning, leering stranger in a strip club!”

Okay, sure, this is all very embarrassing. Don Diebel explains, in detail, how he pumps himself up in the mirror before he goes to the strip bar. He writes “SCORE” in soap. It’s tragic and lonely… a ritual of pure magical sadness you’re forced to watch yourself perform. Don even has a moment of lucidity after he tells you to do this when he says you should never tell anyone you do this. But look closely! After years of no one interacting with his blog, this one has a comment! It’s from a very satisfied reader named Deepak! And his profile is… oh, it’s a link to a suspiciously similar website with the same seduction products Don Diebel sells. So either Deepak isn’t real or he is, and he’s the guy copying Don’s old books onto the Internet in exchange for a slice of the subliminal seduction country music CD* profits.

* I actually bought one of these. You’re welcome, Deepak.

Jesus Christ, Deepak posted Don’s instructions for topless handshaking again. I’m going to jump ahead to September of 2019 because it’s around then when Don Diebel’s blog started a new trend of posting image macros.

Seven months after my Cracked article about Don Diebel went live, his blog started stealing graphics from it and using them as posts. Deepak either didn’t know they were made to mock him or didn’t care. Oh, and one thing I haven’t mentioned yet here: after a lifetime of failing to pick up women with the perfect handshake, Don started including God Himself in his sexual assault schemes. He wrote books about how to ask Jesus for free girls, sort of realized it wasn’t going to work, and soon pivoted into using the Lord to deal with his crushing misery. Few people have squandered the gift of life as much as a seduction author dying alone with an empty heart and full balls. He’s still, after all these years, groveling for kisses from strangers in exchange for flowers to be given at a later date. So I don’t blame this bitter old fool for asking God this:

So this was Don Diebel’s sex blog now. A malfunctioning robot or disinterested Deepak reposting images made by his worst critic to embarrass him. That’s a prayer, to the Lord Jesus Christ, asking Him to help you not forgive women who almost certainly never existed. How is this happening? I didn’t even know you could get Jesus wrong, but this lifelong sex pest did, then got humiliated for it, then paid someone to post a picture of the humiliation to an audience of zero, and now it’s happening again.

Over the course of five books, Don Diebel went from “here’s how you use subliminal hypnosis to get any chick at a disco” to “please God if You are listening I’m so alone, I know You won’t give me a woman, I get that, but please Jesus help me with this sadness, Amen.” And here he is, in 2019, celebrating a moment not from that superlative career, but from an article mocking it. I don’t feel comfortable adding a punchline to that. I think we’re all now scientists researching the upper limits of fucking up. At what point of failure are you still an author? Still a man?

A month later, Deepak reposted this same tragedy right after a graphic I made of what I would say is Don Diebel’s worst pick-up line, and arguably the worst advice ever given. By the way, if you’re asking strangers if they’re some sexy little girl you remember from 1972 before you talk to God, you legally need to include that in your prayers. “Dear Jesus, I tried the Girl Scout thing again. Yes, I know. Anyway, please help me deal with the loneliness still happening to me for whatever reason.”

The next month, every single post on Don Diebel’s blog was a derisive graphic made by me, his cyber bully, with no links, context, comments, or likes. There’s a thing that happens sometimes when I write about an obscure author and my articles making fun of them take over their Google results, but I’ve never had anyone voluntarily surrender their entire online identity to me like this. It’s fucking nuts. It’s like calling him Fart Virgin and him coming back a year later with a notarized change of name form and saying, “Thanks for the free name, sucker!”

Uh oh, I called him Fart Virgin, which means I’ve hit the part of my Don Diebel research where I’m too sad to make jokes. Let’s see if I can find something positive on the blog of a man who proudly stood by the words “Daddy Pick-Up Line: Your daddy must play the trumpet because he sure does make me horny looking at your beautiful body!”

Hey, wow! Seven months later, on a post about prioritizing Jesus Christ while on a pussy hunt, Don Diebel’s blog got a comment from a reader! A maybe real person, whose name did not link to an online roofie retailer, asked if he could talk privately with Don about “hooking up with single ladies.” It’s happening for him! He got a fan! Though I worry Hugh J is going to be disappointed when Don opens a chat window and types some nutbag shit like “sexy babes love topics so memorize a newspaper before talking to one. thanks for reading! good hunting -Don.”

hahaha Don, I was kidding about memorizing the newspaper, Don! Hold on… make an interesting story… wisecracks… you know, aside from the trumpet quote graphic Deepak included, this one isn’t very crazy at all. How is “memorize the goddamn newspaper” Don Diebel’s best seduction advice? How has the bar been so lowered that a pervert’s dying words of “it’s quite erotic to memorize… the newspaper!” has me saying, “You know, he’s not wrong, gang!” Have I been subliminally hypnotized by the seductive country music CD I bought*?

* again, I really did.

Nine days later, Don leads us in a prayer to try to convince Jesus we’re not sad our girlfriend left. I’m not sure if this makes it more sad or less sad, but Don Diebel definitely made up this girlfriend he’s hassling Jesus about.

Don Diebel is now trying to cope with Jesus’ choice to not give him free babes. Over the course of his career Don has tried everything. Hypnosis never worked, asking to suck feet at the pool didn’t end how he hoped, propositioning every centerfold type of topless dancer was arguably pointless, handshakes and staring led to nothing, smiling was a huge waste of time, and now on his death bed even Jesus is failing him!? How? Is Jesus maybe mad about Don not being Christian enough? That must be it. Put that in the blog, Deepak.

After too much Don Diebel I find myself taking on some of his mannerisms. For instance, I start giving out obvious advice like “if you want your mentoring to be taken seriously don’t include a picture of yourself sexually objectifying Girl Scouts.” Otherwise, this post is sound advice– if you shut up about feet and Girl Scouts long enough for a woman to stay and talk to you, let her finish her sentences. Wait, hold on, what is that hypothetical story this hypothetical woman is telling? Someone mooned her during rush hour? I don’t like how Don Diebel’s yada yada example of a generic human conversation is some guy taking out his asshole and showing it to a woman. It makes sense, but I still don’t like it. Let’s do one more…

God damn it, Don. You’re still doing this? We can’t end on that one. Let’s jump all the way to the present day. What advice did the self-proclaimed #1 Singles Expert in America Since 1981 use to end 2021?

In 2021, years after we collectively decided this is a very special occasion word, Don Diebel used “bitch” ten times to describe women and their bitchy ways. It’s the culmination of forty years of academic women’s studies in and out of the field, and Don Diebel’s advice on meeting and seducing ladies is “bitches are bitches and will never not be bitches, wait let me explain: those bitches will die bitches.” It’s incredible. He has spent every waking moment of his life dedicated to this singular purpose and no one has been worse at anything. This is like finding out Timothy McVeigh wrote 30 books on serene home decorating tips. With all the deranged wonders I’ve seen, I truly can’t believe Don Diebel is still doing this shit.

Promoted by Poxco Smartlink Targeted Chumvertising

…
This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Brian S., who mistakenly received the answers to every single one of Don Diebel’s prayers and spends every day on the run from a drugged stripper army.