Author: Seanbaby

Categories
NERDING DAY

Birdman Theater, Episode 0001 🌭

In 1967, Birdman debuted on Saturday morning TV. He was powered by the sun, written by confused idiots, and brought to life by even more confused foreign animators. As a nerd of some renown, I’ve seen over seven cartoons, and the original Birdman is without question my all-time favorite. You are very lucky to be reading the first installment of Birdman Theater, a Pullitzer-eligible series where I describe episodes of Birdman to you, the hot ladies of 1-900-HOTDOG. Now, as soon as I stop fucking around, we can start Birdman Theater Episode 0001: Birdman Episode 03A: The Quake Threat!

Out of respect to the original writers, no dialog will be altered in these Birdman scenes.

Like every Birdman episode, “The Quake Threat” starts in Birdman’s volcano base with him getting an emergency call from Falcon 7. Two important things to know right away are that Falcon 7 is voiced by a man clinically unable to convey urgency and Birdman has no secret identity or hobbies. He is never putting down a book or rushing a woman out of his volcano who only knows him as everyday test pilot “Birdley Mantooth.” The only thing he is ever doing at the start of an episode is sitting here and waiting for his computer to turn on. We have no reason to believe he’s wearing a costume at all. We could very well be looking at his nude body.

Birdman cartoons cram an entire three act structure into seven minutes, so the plot is usually developed by Falcon 7 explaining who the bad guy is, what he’s doing, and what he wants. “The Quake Threat” is no exception. Professor Kairoff has an earthquake beam and he is going crazy with it– just pointlessly making earthquakes. Falcon 7 worries he’ll use it to demand ransom from the world or loan it out to other people who will demand ransom from the world. Birdman has a lot of trouble following along, and Falcon 7 seems pretty cranky that so much of his workday is being spent explaining the downsides of earthquake crime to Birdman. Once he finally understands, it occurs to him:

It’s a criminal madman causing earthquakes for no reason and Birdman’s main concern is him potentially giving his earthquake ray to the wrong person, and this seems like a great opportunity to mention Birdman is stupid as shit.

Falcon 7 has no idea where to find Professor Kairoff, but Birdman figures he’ll just follow the shockwaves and leaves screaming his catchphrase, which is his name. By the time he gets into the sky, the writers realize Birdman can fly and shoot lasers and neither of those abilities allow him to follow the shockwaves of earthquakes. Or, now that they think about it, the shockwaves from a ray that caused the earthquakes? Jesus, what are they going to do? Wait, hold up, Birdman has a “solar band,” a device used only this once during the show’s two year span, which is a bracelet that lights up when you’re going towards the source of an earthquake ray shockwave. Honestly, it’s amazing whoever sold this thing to Birdman wasn’t fucking with him. Real quick, I reverse engineered the schematics:

We are finally introduced to Professor Kairoff who is watching Birdman flying toward his base. If you know anything about old cartoons, you already know he’s got a real-time, full color security camera that can film anyone, anywhere. He knew someone might be coming, so he was scanning sector “Sky,” coordinates “Fucking Middle Of The.” Also, Kairoff is a weird little gremlin in a pink unitard with red panties and he’s been living alone so long he talks to his robots. He lives in the volcano next door to Birdman, and thinks Avenger’s name is Eagle. Most writers wouldn’t risk the confusion of having one main character forget the name of another main character, but Birdman doesn’t give a shit. He’s lucky if he stays the same color for a whole episode.

Notice the evil genius didn’t say, “Oh, shit, he must have traced my earthquake ray shockwaves with some kind of, I don’t know, solar band?” Do you know what this means? It means the writers of this, the stupidest goddamn show, have written a genius villain dumber than themselves! Let’s see if that ever ends up being a problem for him as we continue the story.

Kairoff tells his robot “Gorga” to take two metal men up the elevator to dispose of Birdman. These voiceless “metal men” are automatons so disposable even the writers and animators forget about them several times a scene, but for some reason Kairoff gave this one, Gorga, a name. Why? What makes Gorga special? The answer lies in his schematics:

Gorga and the two metal men he selected using a decision protocol you or I might call “love,” emerge from the mountain and immediately shoot Birdman and Avenger in the heads. To their credit, no one could have predicted their mitten claws would shoot lasers. Also, due to budget limitations, they can only change direction in flight once every six episodes.

I know you’re worried, but don’t be. Both of them are fine. Weirdly fine. It’s almost as if no one involved in this from the writers to the animators to the fictional characters seemed to care if these “force rays” work. I mean, one of them hit an ordinary bird square in the face. Gorga, if your laser can’t kill an ordinary bird, why bother shooting it? Because your best friend asked you to? Gorga, you may be a robot, but here you are teaching me what it is to be human. Anyway, the unharmed Birdman easily obliterates Gorga. Wait, oh no! Not Gorga!!

It might be because I’m having trouble dealing with what happened to Gorga, but this next part is confusing. Avenger is now in the clutches of one of the other metal men. I have no idea why this majestic eagle, flying hundreds of feet above only a moment ago, would dive down in the middle of a battle to nest in a robot’s ray-blasting robot claws, but here we are.

And now I know I must be crazy, because as soon as Birdman sees his amazing partner being used as an eagle shield, he says “DROP THAT BIRD YOU BUCKET OF BOLTS,” and full-power shoots the fucking shit out of his own bird. Birdman will absolutely kill you through a hostage. He loves justice so much he will pay for your robot execution with the life of his own dearest friend.

There’s no reason Avenger should be alive. Eagles are about 10 pounds of hollow bones and feathers and this one has eaten direct hits from two kinds of laser beams in five seconds. I have a theory that one of Birdman’s writers truly hates eagles and he brutally murders Avenger in the first draft of every script, but before they send it off a second Birdman writer comes in and adds “he doesn’t really die” in Korean.

The final metal man grabs a giant boulder and throws it at Birdman, demonstrating an absurd strength less plausible than tension in a story about a laser-proof eagle. Birdman easily catches it and throws it back, a defiance of physics so deranged Gorga and the other destroyed metal man spontaneously reform so they can be killed again.

Please know that two different characters made mention of there being exactly three metal men, so these are not extra robots from off frame– this is simply far beyond the number of things the writers and animators can keep track of. Once more than zero things are on screen, it’s anyone’s guess where they are or which ones died. But I’m sorry to say, this time Gorga really is gone.

Kairoff’s robots, the ones who shot things at our heroes with no chance of hurting them, didn’t work and their remains have already vanished, but the evil professor has one more idea. He turns on his intercom and says, and I quote:

Birdman, in his outside voice without guarding his mouth, says to his bird, who doesn’t speak English or understand the concept of deception:

Birdman, who you’ll remember is so stupid, gets into the elevator which is also a cage and is immediately squashed in a trap. Well, not immediately. First Kairoff makes a joke. Well, not exactly a joke. He laughs while he taunts him. Well, not taunt exactly. More like a welcome, and then the same welcome again, but with a laugh in the middle. Does that make sense? No? Well, then welcome to Birdman. Ha ha ha, welcome… indeed.

Why would he say this? Is he mad from loneliness? Heartbroken after seeing his precious Gorga die twice? Written by careless hacks? However Kairoff came to be, he’s the best. And when Birdman demands to be let loose, he replies with words that seem like they were formed by poking the brain of a cartoon writer during an autopsy.

There’s nothing better than Birdman dialog. It’s perfect. It’s like the producers were throwing cliches together and hoping for mediocre, but got everything a little bit wrong to form a masterpiece no competence or sanity could have created. For instance, Birdman responds to this by saying, “I SHOULD HAVE EXPECTED THIS. AND I’VE BEEN AWAY FROM THE RAYS OF THE SUN FOR TOO LONG. MY STRENGTH… IS… EBBING.”

This is the second act of all Birdman stories– the part where he runs out of solar power. Birdman’s weakness is that he can’t fight at night, underwater, inside, or when it’s partly cloudy, and he never remembers any of this. Here he is once again caught off guard by the very basic premise of his super power. The only thing dumber than a solar-powered hero walking into a dark elevator to battle a villain who can defeat him by refusing to open it is what happens next.

Kairoff turns on his video conference machine to brag to three men about how he caught Birdman who yells to himself:

No they’re absolutely not, Birdman. That’s clearly a reporter doing a story on a ventriloquist who helps the police solve supernatural crimes. Did he call the wrong number? Is Birdman looking at a different monitor? Are the leaders of world nations what everyone sees during the last moments of an elevator crushing?

This is all standard Birdman adventure right here– everything is crazy, and he’s trapped and powerless as a result of his unimaginable stupidity. To recap, his plan was to tell the bad guy, “I’m pretending to be a bad guy,” and lock himself in a cage. Luckily, whenever this happens, Avenger turns into an invincible rescue machine. He knows Birdman’s dumb ass is somewhere needing sunlight, so he rips through an air vent and goes nuts, tricking the “genius” into blowing skylights into his own roof with wild laser gun shots. It would be a weird way to handle a bird loose in your home even if you didn’t have a guileless idiot right behind you loudly narrating how your bad decisions are helping him.

Two seconds of sunlight recharges all the power Birdman lost from eleven seconds of being inside, and he breaks free! Kairoff and his last remaining metal man throw some lasers at him, but shooting at a full-powered Birdman this late in the story is like throwing a teddy bear into an orgy. Maybe it only bounces off, but it’s more likely you’re about to see a soft, helpless thing get destroyed by a lunatic’s violent penetration.

Birdman easily blocks their rays with his solar shield, a tiny energy field no one has ever shot around in the history of television. Then he leaves.

I’m serious. He decided he needs more solar power (while literally bathing in glowing sunlight), so he flew out through a hole in the roof. He called a timeout in the middle of a fight for a plainly unnecessary reason, and then flew right back around. Professor Kairoff was so confused by the whole thing this is what he said when Birdman re-entered:

I guess he figured he wasn’t coming back? He’s a pro, though; so he recovers quickly and grabs a lever. He warns, “ONE MOVE OF THIS LEVER AND I CAN START A QUAKE IN YOUR COUNTRY’S CAPITAL!” This is another strange quirk of Birdman in that it’s very obviously America but they always refer to Washington D.C. as “your country’s capital.” I think they were hedging their bets so if Vietnam won and moved the capital to Hanoi this cartoon wouldn’t age into something ridiculous.

You already know from earlier how Birdman responds to hostage situations. That’s right– double goddamn solar beams. He annihilates this little fucker. Kairoff’s tiny body is ground zero for 200 megatons of solar destruction. You do not threaten Birdman’s nation’s capital, wherever such a place might be, with an earthquake lever!

This isn’t a murder, though. Birdman hit Kairoff with the kind of explosion that only affects solid rock, sex robots, and earthquake machines. In fact, Kairoff seems completely uninjured. What is he? And why? Did a bat crash into a sperm bank? Is he a star vampire? Is he an ordinary Turkish child? And damn it, Birdman, was the secret to beating him just flying in and shooting him this whole time!?

Hold on, Birdman, you don’t have the authority to do any of this? And y-you know that’s the elevator out, right? You’re trapping him in the… Birdman, that’s how you get out of this place. He’s twenty inches tall and can very clearly fit through the bars, Birdman! And you’re leaving? You’re putting him in the elevator he uses to get in and out of his own home and leaving!? To get the same cops who asked you to take care of this guy!? Birdman, y– oh, I guess he’s gone.

Categories
LEARNING DAY

How to Be a Way Cool Grandfather

“Rad, Dad, that’s bad!” my 10-year-old grandson exclaimed. Those are the opening words to 1996’s HOW TO BE A WAY COOL GRANDFATHER. Verne Steen had handed a homemade toy to his grandson, a child unable to tell the difference between his father and grandfather and screaming stilted slang from the wrong decade. They are the words that inspired Verne to think, “I will publish a book to teach other grandparents to be this way cool.” It’s a stupid tale made mostly of holes which, as you’ll see, makes it the book’s perfect origin story.

First off, Verne wants to make sure you know what this book is not. It will not teach you how to MTV rock ‘n’ roll or Internet fad or ass eating, whatever those things are. It is a nothing-fancy collection of crafting projects for boys, that’s fucking it, and Verne spends 24 pages apologizing for it in his introduction. He has a section called “My Chauvinism” about how pissed you must be if you’re a grandma reader and how you can cure it by fucking yourself. He mentions many, many times how nothing about any of this is “cool,” it’s just a dumb name and you should maybe just move on from the title he chose, okay? Whatever this book is, Verne needs us to know it’s absolutely not going to be cool. Here’s the tail end of it if you want your expectations properly lowered:

So now that you understand this is pretty male-oriented and honestly not super cool, let’s get started!

Verne did as much as he could to keep us from expecting “way cool,” but this is an elderly man carving homemade kazoos out of drinking straws and calling them “tooters.” He’s just making garbage more noisy. If making garbage more noisy was cool, Creed would have a gong player and he would fuck.

I have no notes on this one. Making a gun out of a clothespin is something way cool MacGyver would do to foil a K-Mart robbery, which is also a way cool point of reference a grandfather might have.

A slingshot is a nice upgrade to what you’ve already armed the children with, but I’m starting to wonder what activities require this many projectile weapons. Is Verne tricking his grandkids into guarding his bird feeder from squirrels? Is he secretly preparing them to defend points of entry against an FBI raid? I just think it’s suspicious that two of grandpa’s first three ideas are weapons and the one that isn’t fucking sucks. Let’s see what his next “cool” project is…

Of course. Verne only owns three mugs. One says “Ask Me About My Grandkids!” The other says, “Ask Me About My Grandkids’ Missing Eyes!” And the last one says, “If You Can Read This You’re Being Hunted by My One-Eyed Grandkids!” The moment you lose sight of Verne’s grandchildren in a JoAnn’s Fabric, you can be sure they’re behind you loading a knitting needle into an improvised harpoon gun.

Verne, they’re playing in the backyard, not escaping a POW camp. They don’t need a seventeenth primitive hunting tool. I’m sure you and 1996 didn’t agree a lot on child safety regulations, but you can’t just carve everything in a kid’s life into a murder weapon and call it a book. This is getting crazy. Is he trying to thin these kids out so it’s easier to remember all their names? They fucking have enough weapons, Verne!

Okay, good. HOW TO BE A WAY COOL GRANDFATHER isn’t entirely dedicated to helping children shoot each other. This is a sonic weapon instead of a projectile one. Why would a kid need a noisy whistle used to frighten your enemies before you kill them? Well, for one, it opens up a dialog between you and your grandchildren about the power of intimidation in a land war. I don’t know exactly how old Verne is, but if you asked an australopithecus to write a how-to book, it would look identical to this.

At a certain point in your toy-making process, one of your grandchildren is going to ask you to stop and look down at the lawn full of deadly weapons you’ve made and say, “Grandpa, I think a big part of you is still back in Vietnam.”

Jesus Christ, Verne. This one isn’t even pretending to be a toy. What are we fucking doing here? Whatever you’re arming these children for, they’re ready!

V-Verne? What the fuck am I looking at here? Toothpick Springer? So it shoots toothpicks… wait, burning toothpicks? You’re just making Blair Witch shit that explodes into fiery splinters for your 6-year-old grandchildren? This is crazy, but I have to say, it’s also cool as shit.

You might be wondering why a child soldier book so plainly written by a traumatized survivor of a man-hunting safari would include a Safety Concerns section with each project. Wouldn’t anyone with even a passing interest in safety write a book on literally anything else? Look, I can’t decipher the full mystery of Cool Grandpa Verne. But I can let you know that most of the Safety Concerns sections look like this:

In conclusion, teach your children to turn trash into weapons; it should be fine. And upon reflection, this book was written 24 years ago… a lot of Verne’s grandkids had to have killed sixty or seventy men by now. Okay, bye!

Categories
FUCKING DAY

How to Solve Your Sex Problems With Self-Hypnosis

Some time before The Secret but after Giving an Innocent Child’s Blood to Aruk, sorcerers interested in personal growth used something called self-hypnosis. It’s basically telling yourself what you want to hear -very hard- and hoping it comes true. People used it to bowl better, pick up disco chicks, or get bigger tits. This book is about solving your sex problems with self-hypnosis, so the author called it…

This is a used copy, and like all previously owned metaphysical books, the last reader seems like they were engaged for about five pages before they either abandoned their new life as a wizard or decided their powers were great enough. The preliminary instructions for achieving a state of self-hypnosis are heavily underlined and circled, but there are no signs they read anything else except for two dog-eared corners– one before the chapter “WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT MASTURBATION” and one on the section “how to remedy bedroom mistakes with self-hypnosis.” So here’s what we know about the previous owner: they are a half-trained hypnotist, they know at least what they should know about masturbation, and they are flawless in the bedroom. So I’m in some pretty fucking excellent company.

You might be wondering w– excuse me for a second. Go fuck yourself, Topper. Okay, you might be wondering what kind of sex problems you can cure with self-hypnosis. Well, this is a 1979 edition of a book first published in 1964, so their definition of “identifying problems” is pretty close to what you and I would call “hate crimes.” Author Frank S. Caprio believes homosexuals suffer from a deviant sickness which they would know if they’d just take the penises out of their holes and read a book. This isn’t a theory, by the way– it’s fact. It’s so important, Frank stops writing self-hypnosis affirmations for about 30 pages so he can explain what gay is and which traumas cause it. It’s so goddamn crazy. It’s like stopping a physics lecture to list which races have the dumbest voices. It’s like pausing The Voice to tell your wife, “All Lives Matter” six hundred times while stepping into your summoning circle to call Hitler. Here are some of the “up-to-date facts about male homosexuality” if you’re interested:

Now y– hold on. Topper, you are the “up-to-date facts about male homosexuality” of people. Now you understand this book was written by a man cursed with both unspeakable ignorance and supreme confidence who thinks psychic powers are real. This means Frank S. Caprio is capable of unlimited dislogic. For example, he knows self-hypnosis can cure gay, but some gays won’t want to be cured. Now stop for a second. I want you, treasured hot dog supporter, to get in Frank’s dumb-as-fuck mindset and think of the stupidest, most obvious thing a person would come up with to solve this problem. You’re right! The gays who don’t want a cure can use self-hypnosis to convince themselves they do want a cure! Frank S. Caprio’s mind is dumbshit turtles all the way down.

I apologize if you already know this, but females can also become afflicted with homosexuality (lesbianism). Frank’s “investigators” believe they are as numerous as male homosexuals. He uses this word “investigators” often, which at first I thought meant “experts” or “researchers.” But after seeing it so many times and in so many different contexts, I think it’s more likely Frank (🌭lmao) hired private detectives to document local homosexuals.

Frank absolutely forgot he was writing a book about self-hypnosis once he got on the subject of homosexuals.

My favorite story in the book is when Frank uncovers the source of one patient’s lesbianism. It was born when she was a child and she thought sex was when a boy peed directly into a girl. Right then and there she made a solemn, lifelong vow to never let it happen to her. And the only way to be certain of that was to become gay which is apparently harder to undo than relearning “sex is different from toilet.” Frank is probably making her up since her story is too insane to be real and also elegantly and stupidly supports his “facts.” Plus, it seems suspicious Frank ran into the only other person in the world who would devote their entire life and identity to a child’s misunderstanding of how everything works.

To be perfectly clear, there are dozens and dozens of pages like this followed by one paragraph telling you what to say to yourself to cure your homosexuality. But here’s the thing– none of it is written in the second person, and gay people are written about like they are a completely different species from the reader. It’s lunacy to think this book was ever intended to get into the hands of a reluctant homosexual. It was written for premature ejaculators and sex addicts who, unrelated to those problems, wanted to read several chapters of a madman’s bigoted ravings. This is like an air conditioning repair manual that’s just a list of common Jewish hiding places followed by the number for an air conditioning repairman. It is so fucked.

My mission at 1900HOTDOG is to do more than point at things and say look at the silly artifact from a time when idiots thought intolerance was “facts.” I mean, without question, behold the ancient hypnotist’s outrageous homophobia, but it’s also my job to find the secret absurdity hiding behind the obvious. And it’s this– Frank S. Caprio is debilitatingly horny. The only reason he got into hypnotherapy was to meet vulnerable nymphomaniacs without the ability to spot bullshit. Here’s the type of patient he describes treating several times:

These women can’t get enough dong, and it’s almost always because they can’t find the right lover. They suffer from something he calls “FRIGIDITY” which makes them insufferable, but also and more importantly: dick-thirsty. He mostly helps them use self-hypnosis to, and I’m not kidding, forgive themselves for cheating on their husbands.

Topper, you are the most joyless monstrosity to ever ride a geyser of black afterbirth into our world. You’re what food additive scientists call “the part of the beaver anal gland we have no use for.” Where were we? Oh yeah, Frank was trying to figure out how to use hypnotism to give orgasms to these poor horny adulteresses.

This is the story of one of his many sexy female patients who throw themselves onto dicks desperately hoping to find the satisfaction their husbands can’t give them. This one was simply “unable to refuse sex relation to any man who became her escort for the evening.” And for an unethical hypnotist in the ’60s, this is very much the greatest combination of words you could ever hope for.

Assuming anything Frank says is true, which is ludicrously unlikely, he also consulted with this patient’s husband, “Jack” to help him, gradually through hypnosis, keep an erection long enough to bring his unfaithful cock-starved wife to climax. 

Topper, you’re going to have to avert your eyes, because not all of Frank’s sex tips are hypnotic. There’s a significant portion of this book that just forgets all about self-hypnosis to explain the physical mechanics of fucking a hole until it squirts.

There is… there is just so much of this. Frank fucks like Bret Michaels. He fucks like he’ll rupture if his balls aren’t drained every three hours. He fucks like a Mormon balls-deep in his fifth and seventh wives in the aisle of the school bus they used to get their 28 children to Red Lobster.

You probably guessed this from what you know about Frank, but he has very different rules for men and women when it comes to infidelity. When men cheat it’s more accidental, like looking down and saying, “This isn’t softball practice!” to the strange vagina you’re penetrating. Women are mentally ill and deliberate when they cheat, but men can be jogging and spontaneously start a secret family with a pantieless nymphomaniac running the wrong direction.

I want to tell you right now, though; Frank has no patience for people who kill their cheating wives. Under no circumstances should you murder your unfaithful spouse or her lover. It’s important not to strangle your whore wife to death followed by the man inside her, and this is a weird bit because you don’t yet know how often Frank weirdly repeats this sentiment over and over in his book. I’m not sure if he’s trying to find the right words or if a big part of self-hypnosis is NOT KILLING THAT AWFUL WOMAN, but please add it to the list of strange things going on here.

Oh, shit, I haven’t even talked about all the sex criminals Frank claims to have cured. He has a whole chapter on the rapists and pedophiles he reprogrammed with his techniques. And, look, I’m no expert. I’m just some guy who has read 74 books about self-hypnosis, but it doesn’t feel super safe when the man who stated, as fact, he can cure homosexuality is pretty sure the dangerous predators are ready to go free since he taught them how to hypnotize themselves and maintain an erection. You have to see the insanity he gets up to in pages 185 through 207…

Topper, you soulless fuck, I hate you even more when you’re right.

Categories
PUNCHING DAY

How to Protect Yourself & Survive 🌭

In 1979, the streets feared only one thing: author Sidney Filson. She wrote HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF & SURVIVE: from one woman to another which made all other books look like frivolous indulgences. This is 151 pages of kill-danger’s-dick-with-car-keys Karate. When star scavengers are one day picking through the remains of human civilization, they will use this book as an archaeological marker to determine which woman died last.

After the title and a picture of someone punching a hand, there was nothing left to be explained, so Sidney used the back of the book for her 9″ x 12″ headshot. It’s unusual for an urban survival book, but from one woman to another, Sidney is looking pretty good. When you have Sidney’s smile, hair, and bone structure, you don’t waste your book sleeve with “further information.” Here’s some, though: this book rules and I can prove it. See, I’ve developed a system that can scientifically measure the three main features of the genre: Groin Destruction, Pre-Enactments, and Attitude. If you’re interested in further information…

The most efficient way to measure the greatness of a female self-defense book is with The 1-900-HOTDOG Tri-Matrix of Lady Karate Literature. As shown here:

Groin Destruction is the primordial ooze from which all Karate life developed. The fastest way to overcome any physical disadvantages you have against an attacking man is by smashing the flopping weak spot that led him into this mistake. Hand swings, foot bashes, fuckable tubes of mayonnaise left as distractions… a self-defense book needs to be creative, aggressive, and single-minded when it comes to the penis.

Pre-Enactments paint a picture of where you will be using your violent new powers. A low-scoring book in this category might have nothing more than a few bored men lunging at women in a parking lot. An exceptional book will feature costumes, absurd situations, and suspiciously real reactions to dick punches. It should imagine situations where you’re fighting your way out of a dentist groping or a clown emergence. A lady Karate book should remind you danger is everywhere and ridiculous and anyone who forgets it is doomed to be killed by a Chuck E. Cheese.

Attitude! describes how well the book prepares you mentally for fucking someone up. If I can stop being cute for a second, martial arts books are like sex books– every delusional idiot thinks they should write one and only much more delusional idiots think they improve by reading them. Pictures of Karate will not help you fight, and you don’t need to throw a book club into the Octagon to discover Sensei Barb’s Palm Strikes for Seniors was inadequate training for real combat. But who cares? Human conflicts hardly ever look like combat. Anyway, a book with poor Attitude will try to convince you you have the secret double chop technique to escape any grapple. A good one will convince the reader not to take anyone’s shit and to let your bitch ass attacker know that no matter what happens he’s leaving with a bite full of missing dick.

Great! Now let’s see how How to Protect Yourself & Survive: from one woman to another rates on this groundbreaking and expertly designed self-defense book rating system!

Groin Destruction: 7/10

Sidney calls her self-defense courses “Wonder Woman School” because as she says on page 118, and I *gulp* quote, “Can you imagine Wonder Woman being raped?” I should have warned you earlier, Sidney is a woman of palm heels to the groin, not words. Her philosophy is to go fucking nuts on every dick that gets out of line and to train for this, she has one student awkwardly stand still while another squares up and slaps her in the crotch. It’s a technique that will make you say, “I understand the risk I’m taking engaging with you in this way and under these circumstances, but hi there, ladies.”

Sidney suggests different groin techniques based on the location or angle of your opponent. For instance, and I again *gulp* quote, “Do not attempt to grab the groin area of a man on top of you. This is what a rapist expects a woman to do in self-defense.” One of her few faults is how Sidney seems to view the world through the lens of point Karate where even men in the middle of horrifying assaults are following some kind of martial arts game plan you can outmaneuver with your guile. Her tips feel wise, but I worry some attackers aren’t going to stick to the script. It feels like telling someone not to use a plunger to try to defeat a janitor. It’s like saying “hot dog eating champion sexual assaulters will be expecting you to slow them down with a trail of delicious hot dogs– do the opposite!” Can you guess what the opposite of a trail of delicious hot dogs is? No, that’s not it! No. No. No! No. Yes! You’re right, it’s a suitcase full o– hold on, why are you so curious?

Under most other circumstances, Sidney loves a good groin attack. And it gives me great pleasure to say I’m summing up about four pages of her book here: Have a friend lay down so you can practice stomping on a dick. I love it so much, but I can’t imagine a worse way to train than putting a fragile thing you care about on the floor to hone your stomping technique. It’s getting you used to very specifically not shattering a pelvis. What did a zucchini cost in 1979? Four cents? I bet you could build an entire penised vegetable man for about two dollars and after you’re done killing it you’d have a healthy meal for your family. Oh, I sound crazy? This lady dedicated a chapter of her Karate book to telling untrained women how to stab each other in the vagina with high heels!

By the end of the book, the groin attacks take on an almost magical effectiveness. Like when this creep tries to give a flower to a six-year-old and she responds by just obliterating his nuts. And notice Kaylee isn’t using an elbow strike to set up an escape. That’s elbow one of a seventy elbow combo. Sidney makes maybe three mentions of fleeing in her entire survival book. This is a book for women who, sure, want to survive, but would much prefer to get pulled off a disfigured cock by a SWAT team.

Pre-Enactments: 8/10

Most of the photos in the book are Sidney and her students using other women as punching bags, but the male actors brought in to play shattered rapists earn their money.

You don’t normally get performances this big from the models in Karate books. These are theatrical ass kickings.

This guy is being hit by a slap from a 110 pound woman who isn’t rotating her hips and it is shutting his fucking brain off. When he wakes up the prison doctor is going to tell him, “Hey, pal, I’m not a doctor, but maybe you shouldn’t have been grabbing women if your bones are made out of styrofoam. What’s that? Where’s your dick? Oh, buddy, ha ha you don’t want to know what happened to that. The cop who mopped it up for evidence quit the goddamn force.”

This guy is the greatest Karate model I’ve ever seen. Look at the performance he brings to “ATTACK FROM THE REAR.” Sidney is writing this deadly serious handbook on genital revenge and he is turning it into a jazz routine. During his interview for this job he told her, “Oh, sweetie, my father was a Baptist preacher, so trust me: I can play straight.” Look at him slinking up on her in his tap shoes like he’s playing Insecurity in a high school play. It’s hard to overstate how little chance White Slacks Jeffrey has against Sidney Filson.

Every part of White Slacks Jeffrey’s body explodes in orgasmic terror when you touch it.

No one will ever have greater self-esteem than the women practicing elbow strikes on White Slacks Jeffrey. Everything that touches him shatters his entire skeleton and astonishes him. His balls blast out the back of him when you slap them. But, okay, what if you’re not being attacked in a white void by a jaunty man-about-town? What if you’re doing a little bit of swimsuit meditation in a grassfield? Well, I have 16 words for you: “Close your own eyes, and poke them a bit with your finger. Imagine a full thrust.”

Women should obviously be allowed to go wherever they want as nudely as they want, but this scenario seems ill-advised. It’s almost like something Sidney set up on purpose after telling a black market trader, “Don’t worry about where I’ll find two human eyeballs. Just hand me my swimsuit and be back in an hour with the money.”

Besides her love of vulnerable spots, Sidney is a huge advocate for car key nunchucks. About a third of her book is devoted to attacks you can do with a little chain attached to your keys. Sidney is certain they are the deadliest weapon devised by woman, and if she is dangling keys from her hand, she is a category 7 murder hurricane. When Sidney Folson opens her front door, she blows apart anyone and everything in her foyer.

“Practice screaming as you strike!” Sidney spent so much time training students and readers to remove faces with car keys I worry she lost perspective on how intimidating a long keychain is to people who haven’t read her book and devoted their life to key murder. For instance, if you’re walking your dog and a group of men cat-call at you, she suggests identifying the leader and showing him all fucking six inches of your keychain.

Attitude!: 10/10

If you read a single word from the pages I scanned, you had to have seen this score coming. Sidney Filson is always seven dead bodies deep in a fantasy about killing a van of perverts. Her dating profile is just a picture of you with both ends of her car key nunchucks in your eyes under the words “NO.”

Look at how Sidney responds to someone asking about pacifism:

Sidney is the best. You were thinking of not fighting back? No, you are going to tear that piece of shit’s eyes out. You are going to beat him until he is unconscious or begging to be unconscious. “It won’t be hit or miss.” She is clumsy with her words but they somehow all come together to paint a beautiful picture of dead predators. However, Sidney sometimes gets herself a bit too worked up imagining all these terrible things. Once that happens, she’ll start freely using “c” and “n” words while she simmers somewhere between murderous rage and uncontrollable murderous rage.

Sorry about, you know, all of this, but this is the world Sidney is preparing you for. A world where hypothetical schizophrenics can keep their face… for now. The line “Walk away and show no emotion,” actually shows a lot of restraint for Sidney. Normally her side of a confrontation begins like this:

So say you’re a woman any passing astronaut would describe as bralessly sitting on a bench, and a man gets too fresh. Sidney offers two options: palm strike to the face or car key nunchucks to the hand. But we will be here all day if I keep showing you situations where she advises palm strikes or key stabbings. Instead, I want to show you the darkest, most troubling moment of the book which I also think defines her entire martial arts philosophy:

Sidney trained under a man named Grand Master Peter Urban, and the most profound thing he ever said to her was how rape would not exist if everyone took Karate. I think I disagree, but only because teaching all rapists Karate seems less safe, not more. We’ll never know who’s right since it’s only Grand Master Peter’s theory for now. Either way, it demonstrates Sidney’s approach to the world– Karate solves everything and I’m done thinking about it. After reading her book I am positive she’s right and my car key nunchucks fucking dare you to disagree with us.

Categories
NERDING DAY

The Easy 40 Step Method to Cube Dominance 🌭

For this Nerding Day, I was looking through one of many books on Rubik’s Cube solutions I own. They have their own notation and terminology, complicated 3D matrices, and as I’ve told myself several times before, they exist in a weird gray area where they’re too absurd to exist but too boring to be funny. Rubik’s Cube guides are the post 2005 Steven Seagal movies of books. But hundreds of pages into THE EASY 40 STEP METHOD TO CUBE DOMINANCE by Calvin Puzzle, I noticed something strange… something I’m not sure he meant for me to see.

I found a really weird book. This book is very strange. I don’t know how to explain this book. I have found a strangely weird book. I feel like this book was a different, maybe less strange book before.

Categories
LEARNING DAY

Let’s Read: The Goth Scene

Fart Pants is no name for a grandmother, and listen: most baby turtles die knowing only the unforgiving talons of sea birds. Hi, you might be thinking, “Well, this is certainly the weirdest, saddest introduction I’ll read today!” You’re right, unless you read this, the actual introduction to the book Everything You Need to Know About The Goth Scene:

What? What the fuck is this book about teen fashion trends talking about? Well, The Goth Scene was published in 2000, when the blame for Columbine was still trying to fall on something or anything and that very much included Goths. So this book, this insane goddamn book, seems to have been written to reassure everyone the Columbine shooters were not Goths and how despite their spookiness, Goths hardly ever murder. That being said, The Need to Know Library is not a book series about safe hobbies for best friends. Its other titles include WHEN A PARENT DIES, WINDSURFING, INCEST, MONONUCLEOSIS, TEENS WHO KILL, AIDS, and I was lying about WINDSURFING.

This is a book series about dealing with tragedies or social malignance, which means the publisher considered nerds in capes one of those two things. This book didn’t happen because they decided to “do a fun one” between FAMILY VIOLENCE and TEEN SUICIDE. It was written to identify and hopefully solve The Goth Scene. Its working title was probably How Hard to Panic if Your Shitty Teen is a Dracula.

They had to know it was going to be hard to put an entire book together about a youth fad before it morphed into something entirely different, so they sent in their hippest, most Goth reporter– Kerry Acker. Kerry was educated at a private Jesuit school and her other works include a biography of Jimmy Carter and a children’s book about backyard animal facts. If anyone could figure out these gloomy countercultural kids, it was the woman who wrote, “Of all these furry foragers, it’s the skunks who are the real stinkers!”

So it looks like Kerry started by looking up “Goth” in an encyclopedia. There is a lot of information about ancient Goths and their irrelevance to the modern Goth scene. This is like ESPN dedicating an entire episode of its Michael Jordan docuseries to a different man named Michael Jordan in Tampa. “I’ve actually gone by Wally Jordan since I was about six. I’ve seen most of Space Jam, though,” says Michael “Wally” Jordan, as he shows a documentary crew his collection of Qui-Gon Jinn Burger King cups. “Qui-Gon has been a big part of my life ever since my asshole fell out in a car detailing accident. Hey, why do you guys keep asking me about basketball?”

Holy shit, she’s still going. Kerry’s Altavista search for “goth” gave her enough material for several more pages of amazingly pointless facts about things that have a similar name, but are otherwise unrelated to the subject of her book. She seems to think the reader has picked up a book featuring an awkward teenager and thought, “Goth? Like medieval Gothic architecture? No, apparently not, but here is three pages on the subject anyway. Ah, stone gargoyles were common? Now I get Columbine.”

It took a couple dozen pages, but we’re now getting to the important Goth facts. For instance, they love relaxing in mysterious cemeteries. I have to be honest, this wasn’t ever my scene, but I think Kerry nailed it. Goths (probably) love holding crafting parties on human graves. It’s impossible to know if she based her facts on guesses she made after watching Tim Burton movies or if the local teens she interviewed were fucking with her.

I half expect to find a page where Kerry just says, “I’m watching Interview with a Vampire and I bet Goths dress exactly like Tom Cruise in this movie. Ha ha those little Nosferatu clowns totally do full Tom Cruise vampire cosplay every day.”

Oh, fuck. I was kidding! Come on, Kerry.

Kerry writes a lot about vampires being a big part of the Goth lifestyle and I don’t know enough about it to know if she’s wrong. But I do have my doubts this very square woman writing about a teen fad is right when she makes the same obvious observation a dumb idiot would make from a first impression of those teens. It feels like writing a book about Star Wars and saying, “Stoic Jedi leader Qui-Gon Jinn appeals mainly to Trekkies (as they are known in the fandom) who have butthole injuries.”

It’s fine, even normal, if your Goth is fascinated with the mystery of death. But if your Goth is killing animals, they “probably need psychological help.” And if your Goth is levitating over a dead animal, infused with the power given them by its living blood, stay calm and go to Chapter One: Gothic Architectural Features and Locksmiths in Your County Whose Names Start with “Goth-“.  There is a short section before the Siouxsie and the Banshees bio that explains how to bless a dagger.

No, shit, you went too far. Go back, go back!

No, this is from the section explaining Witchcraft. No, I have no idea if Paganism is Goth! The book doesn’t say, but if I had to put money on it, NO! The entire Wicca section from this already vague Goth book would be worse than useless even if we weren’t urgently trying to find the key to defeating a blood-hungry Goth! Please hurry!

If you’re not going to take this seriously, we are going to die.

Is this it? I… no, this is the very start of the Vampirism section where Kerry explains how it’s a common misconception that Goths are so stupid they think vampires are real. This is not always true. Why, some Goths even find this idea ridiculous. Look, hot dog reader and supporter, I know the conceit of this bit is that we’re being hunted by a vampire empowered by pet blood as we flip through a book together, but I want to pause here so we can enjoy how the author of The Goth Scene has an actual section on Vampirism and she reassures you most Goths know vampires aren’t real five times in the first five sentences. It’s really important to her you know they know that. I’ve written maybe more than anyone about insane bullshit, but I don’t know if I’ve ever had as much contempt for or misunderstanding of a subject matter as Kerry Acker has for Goths.

Now, let’s get back to finding a solution to our vampire problem.

This is… okay, this is officially the least amount of helpful information any book has ever contained about a subject. I’m starting to think it was a dumb idea to hire a Christian raccoon expert to ask 1999’s World Wide Web “what Goth?” It’s fucking ludicrous. It’s as dumb as hiring Wally Jordan to write a book about Hiding Gambling Losses from Charles Barkley’s Wife– wait, no. It was fine the way it was. It’s as dumb as hiring a Christian raccoon expert to write about The Goth Scene.