Cyanide and Happiness for January 2, 2009
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Humour
Once again I draw, with permission, from the well of the noticeably deranged Kris Wilson…
Must Visit Websites, #8: Funny or Die
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Humour, Links
Want to laugh so hard you can’t explain yourself to the person in the next room? Three great stress releases, you know, and laughter is one of them (It’s one of the two I clearly remember).
The mountain of talented and celebrated people who contribute to this hopelessly subversive site, home to the legendary "Landlord" video clip, don’t always hit the target head on, but it refreshing to know they are still willing to share even the raw and rough stuff.
Be prepared to laugh. Or die. Or both.
Cyanide and Happiness for December 21, 2008
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Humour
Yes, I have been slow lately…trying to catch up with everything at once! Again, I give you the gifted madness of the great Kris Wilson:
as I was saying…ooooh, shiny
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Humour, Journal
As Jay Leno getting a primetime variety show five nights a week is, I am certain, one of the signs of the Apocalypse, perhaps I should post more often to make sure I get everything said that needs said? Is NBC that bereft of new ideas or cash they have to go for this idea? And do they feel the need to scuttle Conan O’Brien in the process? They have to realize the damage this will do to his launch.
Anyway, just a digressive rant before I launch into my latest babble. I just got back from the post office. Yes, it is Christmas time and only the truly desperate and insane go to the post office this time of year, but I had promised Mariya I would send her some of my books as a Christmas present and I have a pretty good track record for at least trying to keep my word over the last decade or so. Yeah, that’s Mariya in the picture. It’s just one of her pictures we’ll be featuring on the Amomancer blog and at williamfdevault.com, for those of you who care. Stop staring.
As I stood in line I was struck by the diversity of the people who were mailing obvious Christmas presents. Old, young, of every nationality and, most likely, every creed, as Christmas is not a religious holiday anymore, at least not in the US, but more of a cultural holiday. Some of the most hardcore Christmas-keepers I know are atheists or at least of a religious bent that they do not believe in Jesus as anything more than a marketing ploy on the level of Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.
I dare say many of them believe in Energizer Bunny more than they believe in Jesus. But Christmas, in and of itself a bastardization of the Roman Saturnalia feast in order to keep converting members of the Roman polytheistic faiths from missing a big holiday, much as Hanukkah was not a big deal until there was a perceived problem with Christmas becoming an impediment to those who tried to keep their kids in the Jewish faith, is victim of its own successes and excesses.
Aside from a marvelous recitation from the Gospel According to St. Luke by the character of Linus at the end of "Merry Christmas Charlie Brown" and the occasional "God bless" in Dickens’ "A Christmas Carol", where does religion enter into our "keeping of Christmas"? We can buy as many overpriced Christmas cards with crosses on them (and let’s not even get into the perversity of the notion of remembering Jesus by making a graven image of the device that was used to torture Him) but does that really get the message across in this mind-numbing media festival we have made of it?
And no, having Donald Trump and Martha Stewart recite "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" on a TV advertisement is NOT the spirit of Christmas. Yeah, I know when I think of the real Spirit of Christmas and Christian charity, there’s two people who belong right up there with Mother Theresa and Albert Schweitzer.
As a Southern Baptist turned Quaker (after a very brief stay with the Episcopalians, which almost sounds like a political movement to support a Joe Piscopo/Sarah Palin ticket in 2012 on the web) I have seen a fair range of views on the subject. Is it really offensive enough to those who may be offended by saying "Merry Christmas" or even "Happy Holidays" to forego it? I worked with a woman who took umbrage at my habit of saying "God bless you" when someone coughed. She had nothing against me saying it when someone sneezed, but she went off on me over my saying it to a cough. People who wish to find offense can get offended by anything.
I think people do need to be sensitive to other people’s beliefs, to be sure. But, despite the fact that I am offended by the wearing of idols of torture devices (crosses) and even with Jesus still nailed to it, dying in agony, (crucifixes), you do not see me out on the street, giving lip to everyone who doesn’t see anything wrong with it. We need to learn that the world does not revolve around us, our beliefs, our culture.
Be a little more understanding, a little more accepting. Especially, this time of year! After all, it’s Christmas…er, Kwanzaa…um, Hanukkah…Saturnalia…Solstice? Sheesh.
Peace (disclaimer: My use of the word "peace" is not to be interpreted as an attack on or criticism of the US Military, the Military-Industrial Complex, urban militias, state-sponsored terrorist groups, the films of Sam Peckinpah, or gangs operating out of any neighborhood, city, state or country in or on the Planet Earth or to express any dissatisfaction with the conduct of any invading alien races, up to and including those with god-like technologies and/or tentacles. It is not meant in any way to mock the discrepancy between Christian theology and US foreign policy or to make issue of the military career of Alvin York or the post-football career of OJ Simpson. If you have read this far you may need to get a life but if you have read this and understand all the references and subreferences included in this disclaimer you are a good person and should be applauded, even if I disagree with your political, sociological, philosophical or theological belief system and I will defend your right to hold, espouse and express it.) Selah. Now stop staring at Mariya, you’re making her nervous.
turning off the internal editor
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under CDs, Humour, Journal
I have been accused (of many things?) of not having an internal editor or censor, thereby making sure I blurt out things in my writing and speaking that probably I shouldn’t say. I spent a lot of hard work putting those guys (the censor and the editor) in a small, cramped box with little light then kicking it off a cliff somewhere near Cooper’s Rocks. I am NOT in a hurry to let them back in.
It futzes with my creativity. No, really. I think you need to hear an idea before you can dismiss it with any amount of integrity. So here, in honor of my total lack of internal censor, are some of the more recent ideas the entire village of village idiots who make up my internal creative engine have come up with that at least got thought of consciously before being dismissed.
A Christmas CD. Oh, please. Yeah, I can see it now…no, I can’t. Too awful to imagine.
The Goldenheart Cycles as their own volume of poetry. No. No. No. We’re talking old bones, ancient old bones. Besides, it would be a ridiculously slim volume and I don’t believe in cheating my readers that way.
A Poetry-Rock Opera. Sheesh. Find that guy, tie a large rock to his legs and drop him in the well of souls. Then throw larger rocks down in after him. People think I am hopelessly arrogant now. This would be too much evidence of that.
A pocket-size slimmed-down edition of The Compleat Panther Cycles. What? What do we do, triple up poems and print in 5-point type? Remove all the lovely illustrations of Jillian Ann? Ack. I think I feel the big one coming over me…it’s getting dark.
Release a book under an assumed name from a different publisher, just to screw up the ether. To what purpose? Chaos for chaos’ sake isn’t even amusing.
Release separate CDs containing the exact contents of selected books, including As such…, Love Gods of a Forgotten Religion and Ronin in the Temple of Aphrodite, both as readings and as pdfs. I considered this for ten or fifteen seconds. It has merit, but…
A book of children’s verse. Oh, now that would be something…hideous. I never claimed to be well-suited to deal with kids as kids. I like them better as people, something most parents have an issue with.
These are actually some of the saner ideas I see jotted down around my computer, here the driftwood of random thoughts (thank you, Dr. DeBono) washes up from time to time. Ack.
Cyanide and Happiness for December 2, 2008
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Humour
Again, the amazing madness of Kris Wilson…
Cyanide and Happiness for November 24, 2008
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Humour
The real funny of this, the subtext, may escape some of you…
But that’s ikay. Thanks again to the amazing Kris Wilson.
~so while hanging out in your corner...