Author: Seanbaby

Categories
NERDING DAY

Nerding Day: Superhero Stars 🌭

Hi. Have you ever, while walking through the shadows of darkness, found something you hated so much you’d betray your best friend for a chance to unmake it? Hi again, I’m Seanbaby, writing as Todd McFarlane, dark creator of Spawn, to introduce an article about another grotesque John Byrne joke book, 2003’s Joke Busters’ Superhero Stars.

Thanks for the intro, me as Todd. To set this book up, yes, it’s obviously bad jokes about superheroes. But not exactly. John Byrne has created his own zany spoofs of popular superheroes and then made jokes about them. And when I say “spoofs,” I don’t mean satirical takes on tropes or wacky puns. I mean he spelled all their names wrong and nothing else. I’m not exaggerating. Or, as John would put it, “eggs-aggerating” next to a couple eggs.

Unforgivably, “Souperman” has all the same powers as Superman. He does not have silly soup versions of flight or freeze breath or laser vision. If this was a book about Souperman drowning Lettuce Luthor with vichyssoise breath, we wouldn’t be here. This is a “joke book” where some monster added an “o” to Superman’s name and sold it to innocent children.

He doesn’t even have a different secret identity. He’s exactly the fucking same!

You dumb son of a bitch, John. He’s still Clark Kent? You couldn’t make him fucking Clark Consummé or Cream of Kent? Kal-Eggdrop of Kryptom-yum? That took me twelve seconds, you stupid asshole. And why is Souperman camping out with children on a school trip? He’s a childless grown man. The entire premise of the joke, the punchline of which is spelling “Kent” wrong, requires the most virtuous man in the universe to be stalking little kids in the woods. If there were any laws in place for making bad jokes, the state would chemically castrate you for this and sentence the remaining, non-genital parts of you to twenty consecutive life terms. “Clark tent.” Fuck you.

The fact that Superman’s disguise is only glasses has been a shared joke among the human race for about 80 years. And John Byrne’s take on this, the oldest superhero joke, is using a word with a double meaning and getting one of the meanings wrong. Hey, John Byrne, if someone didn’t want to make a spectacle of themselves, they wouldn’t wear glasses, you dumbass. You idiot fuck, John. Let me show you how stupid you are. This is what a Family Circus cartoon would look like if it was as goddamn dumb as you:

Wait, hold on. Maybe we’re supposed to forgive the dislogic because in Souperman’s case, he would try to be less of a spectacle by wearing more spectacles… no. No, this is war crime apologist doublethink. Luckily, not all of his Souperman gags are as controversial as probably(?) misunderstanding a misunderstood idiom. Some of them are just things happening.

“CONGRATULATIONS, SIR… NOW THERE’S A FLY IN THE SOUPERMAN?” What the hell does that mean? It sounds like Björk wishing a spider happy birthday in a Cameo. Maybe you could try, like, a riddle, John?

Again, I need to be clear: aside from eating a fly out of it in a restaurant that one time, Souperman has no soup theme or abilities. He’s simply exactly Superman with “SOUP” on his chest instead of an “S.” So, I don’t know, his favorite game could be some shit like Souper Mario Bros. or Soupo Wrestling, but expecting the audience to make a connection between “BOWLS” and the soup in his name is wild. It’s like asking your reader to suddenly imagine a situation where a spider is having a birthday and someone bought it a Cameo from Björk. It’s like saying “someone on the plane must have had diarrhea during 9/11.” It’s so much work to give your audience, and for what? Morbid sadness scratching at the edge of whimsy? You’re the diarrhea of 9/11, John Byrne.

It’s already a terrible thing to intentionally misunderstand an idiom for a lame joke. It’s worse to write in a straight man who misunderstands something there’s no reason to misunderstand for a lame joke. If someone in prison tells you they were framed, it’s not natural to respond, “Now to be clear, when you say ‘framed,’ you mean the only thing that could mean, right?” And to do that– to destroy your verisimilitude for this punchline? It’s inhuman. Yes, art galleries have frames, but who would describe robbing one in such a way? If you were a linguist trying to teach a monkey wordplay and they put this combination of words together you would consider it a frustrating setback. The point is, it’s a pretty weak framing device, no matter what frame of mind you’re in!

Here he is doing it again. John is desperately stretching for a joke across three word bubbles and he’s still a full step away from a complete gag. If the first speaker followed this up with, “Of course I mean break out of prison, idiot,” it would almost sound like real dialog. My point is, John Byrne is a stupid, sarcastic dick without the sarcasm– all the unpleasant and none of the wit. It’s like Björk filming a Cameo for a spider’s birthday, but without the Björk. Just a pile of spiders calling a spider on its birthday.

Speaking of spiders and no coherent second concept, John Byrne’s Spider-Man knockoff is Spy-Man, a spidery man with a magnifying glass. Which means his favorite place in the playground is “THE MAGNIFYING GRASS,” a punchline way closer to a Wizards & Warriors powerup than a joke. Spy-Man also seems to have maintained most of Spider-Man’s deal, in that he’s insect-themed and swings around on a web. It’s fucking tragic. John Byrne has a wet smear of chewed gum where an imagination should be. I don’t know how much longer I can watch the neurons in his fading brain limp from one idea back to that same idea with the letters rearranged.

Wait, is Spy-Man’s spyglass a goddamn mirror? John, are you fucking serious? You’re using another misunderstood cliche as the punchline to a totally unrelated setup while also requiring us to reconsider magnifying glasses as mirrors? That’s not a long walk for a short drink of water– it’s dragging a dead body to a dry lake. John, take that pen you can’t draw for shit with and fuck yourself with it. I don’t know if this properly reflects my feelings, but this cartoon is what AIDS would say if it could talk. It’s the embarrassing final words of a research monkey being destroyed in a failed linguistics experiment. Oh, speaking of monkeys:

This one isn’t so bad. It’s the only appearance of Gorilla Man, but he seems to have a coherent theme and John managed to put together a riddle that would make any popsicle stick manufacturer say, “I consider this adequate.” But look at where we are. A Gorilla Man used a mon-KEY to break into a crook’s headquarters and my expectations have been lowered so far I consider it a good try. There aren’t standards by which to judge something like John Byrne. It’s like a flesh eating bacteria asking you to take a moment to rate your experience.

This sells itself as a superhero book, but not much of it has anything to do with superhero activities. For the most part, if you took the masks and underwear off everyone, it wouldn’t change anything. It would just be nude people expressing themselves incorrectly in a miserable impersonation of humor. It’s like John Byrne got 100 pages into something he thought was called “101 Ordinary Put Downs For Unremarkable Pieces of Shit” and his editor called to say, “Tomorrow’s the deadline! How’s the superhero book coming?”

“Come on, John. Think. What’s a joke about Chameleonman’s powers? Superheroes change clothes… chameleons change color. There’s something there. Maybe… that’s it! He can’t catch crooks because he changes color! Take that, doctor who called this ‘the worst head injury he’s ever seen’! Honk honk, I’m a motorcycle!!”

It’s almost heroic how John keeps trying. I mean, he’s seen a joke and has to have thought about how they work. He knows x-rays see through things and he’s heard the phrase “seeing right through you,” but he can’t quite link it all together. John Byrne, if your cartoon requires your audience to create an entire superhero who fakes x-ray vision, maybe the most instantly disprovable of all the superpowers, and then the payoff is only, “well yeah, everyone knew,” you’ve done something wrong. Not only here in this moment, but with your entire life. I don’t have a fun way to describe it. You’re a fake dog poop factory worker who made some dumb shape that didn’t look like poop.

Another character John created is called the Incredible Hunk. I think he tried to draw him “handsome” with the talentless paws he calls hands, but he’s otherwise no different than the original superhero he’s spelling wrong. The Incredible Hunk is a green rage monster. And since he’s green, maybe… maybe something with traffic lights? Do kids run into traffic toward anything green? If they don’t, then holy shit, this joke doesn’t work at all.

“Green is almost the same word as ‘grin,’ right? Come on, John, think! There’s got to be something there. Do wrestlers who also work as crossing guards grin after they lose? Griiiiin… greeeen? Aaand bear it? So he wrestles and loses then greens and bears it, but also punches a wrestling judge? Ha. Listen to me. A cartoonist would have to have absolute contempt for their audience to expect readers to make that kind of stretch. They’d have to hate those goddamn children so very much.”

What else happens to green? Oh! Toddlers bite it!

This is a strange one– an interview with a villain named The Green Gobbler whose zaniness is based on how he enjoys eating? And since he eats so much, he’s green? How? Why? I don’t mean the Green Gobbler’s thing. I mean what happens to the concept of green after it enters John Byrne’s brain? Has anyone studied it? The first neurologist to crack this maniac’s head open will discover an entirely new disorder. John Byrne thinks people charge toward green and babies eat green, but you also get green if you eat too mu– oh my god, it’s tits. Never mind, neurologists, this is only some kind of titty code. Unless… oh damn it, I think he might mean he’s green like he’s nauseous– a cannibal in a kid’s book adorably happy he’s about to puke. I hate that if you squint hard enough and pedantically enough you can exhume the skeleton of a joke concept from some of these.

Not all the Hunk jokes have to do with people losing their minds near the color green. Here John asks what would happen if the Incredible Hunk fucked a rabbit? Here’s your answer: that’s nuts, and he strangles Spy-Man! Oh no, wait. Is the word “cross” here referring to making him mad? That would make the rabbit and the rabbit fucking red herrings, and that’d be– hold on, was the “crossing” in the Hunk joke earlier also about the kids pissing him off, or were they still only running towards him because he was a nude monster the same color as traffic lights? Look, guys, I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was going to turn into this.

I’m not comfortable with how often the people in this book finish a joke by saying “I don’t know the punchline!” and strangling the nearest person. This cartoon is something John Byrne’s wife found right before he appeared behind her and asked, “Why are my private things in your hand, dear?”

And she said, “B-because I c-can’t pick them up with my feet?”

“Can’t pick…? Ha. Ha ha ha HAHA HAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!“

Mrs. Byrne slipped out quietly. He was getting worse. She didn’t know how much more time she could buy.

And of course, John has hilarious things to say about how hunks roar and the way superheroes are always lifting up shops. Good luck decoding his thoughts on lasers, though:

This is the Mein Kampf of toast cartoons. Look at it. If they spelled your beloved grandmother’s name “Farts Cadaver” in her obituary, you’d say “that reminds me of the worst thing I’ve ever seen in print– the time all that rotten gas burped out of the corpse of John Byrne’s imagination in the form of a laser toa… no, never mind. Let’s just focus on honoring Farts.”

…
This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Ozzie Olin, also known as the Flish (like the Flash but part fish) who responded to the question “how are you doing, The Flish?” With “I’ve BREAM better!” This is our longest dedication ever because that’s how far you have to journey to land a John Byrne joke.

Categories
PODCASTING DAY

Podcasting Day: Astrology Songs with Stephen Blackmoore! 🌭

This week on the Dogg Zzone 9000, best-selling necromancer author, Stephen Blackmoore, joins us to make sense of twelve mysterious and metaphysical music videos sent to us from the stars. We’re, of course, talking about Harvey Sid Fisher’s Astrology Songs.

Listen here, or wherever!

Where did these songs come from? Of what use are they? How so strange? Why am the? Did they live up to their creator’s hopes of “making him a billion dollars?” Don’t ask us. We each dedicated ourselves to becoming experts on the backup dancers.

You should really watch one before listening, because all three of us work as communicators and none of us were able to explain what they are. They’re theoretically educational songs, but for a thing that isn’t real by a singer/songwriter who isn’t an expert in it, with distractingly hot and weird backup dancers. Four cameras are pointed at them, and all of their footage is randomly composited together like those old portraits with two pictures merg– let me start over. You know when you’re getting your official police photo taken but you also want to honor the Karate aspect of your spirit?

It’s like that, but less magical or sexy. I’m not explaining it very well at all. You should just listen.

If we enriched your soul with cosmic understanding, subscribe and review! Buy Stephen‘s books! Buy Brockway‘s books! Scroll slightly down to see Seanbaby‘s actual DVD-R of all these songs autographed by Harvey Sid Fisher in 2004!

And check out this week’s free bonus episode to see what you’re missing every single week if you, like a fool, use your money for food and clothing instead of surplus comedy.

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

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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:

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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.