My Monkey Just Turned 83.

In 1925, stuff happened; great big, jazz-crazed, temperance rallying, radio-listening wads of stuff. Some of the events of 1925 were tragedies of epic proportions, such as the birth of Merv Griffin. Others events, such as the appointment of Frank B. Kellogg as US Secretary of State, brought in the Utopian view that international crises could be solved by two scoops of raisins and those delicious flakes of bran. It was widely agreed that the selection of Kellogg was Grrrreat!!

But not all the events of 1925 were so clearly black and white. Well, there was the march on Washington of forty-thousand members of the Ku Klux Klan; that deal was about as black and white as an event can be. Other than that 1925 was a year full of nuanced events like American Zeppelin crashes, the development of the basis of quantum mechanics and the addition of the Pottsville Maroons to the National Football League.

What could conceivably be more not black and white than a Maroon?

For my purposes as a humorist, the most important event of 1925 was the Scopes Monkey Trial in which a young high school teacher was brought before the courts of Tennessee for making a chimpanzee drink mouthwash. Scopes claimed that it was entertaining and informative while the State held that giving monkeys fresh breath would only lead to inter-species dating. Further, in nearby Mississippi, Governor Henry L. Whitfield has just rocked the state by being the first elected official to put lipstick on a pig, and then consummate the relationship.

Apparently while giving a speech on improving the public schools.

Given that the lewd, groin-engorging Charleston was the most popular dance of the day, you can see why they would be concerned about the dexterous, multi-limbed allure of sweet-smelling monkeys. The eighty-third anniversary of the start of the trial took place yesterday, and I think we can all say that we are glad that the sensible people of Tennessee stopped that train at the station. Had the verdict turned out differently, how long might it have been before the horrified nation would have faced the Vagisil Manatee Trial? I think you see my point – society at the brink!

Hold on for a minute…

It turns out that the Scopes Monkey Trial is nothing at all like what I just described. The lovely and erudite Mrs. Sinister informs me that;

The Scopes Monkey Trial was actually brought because of a young high school teacher who taught evolution in science class in violation of the Butler Act. Butler specified that no state classroom could teach any theory that denies the story of “Divine Creation”.

After an epic trial (with a lightsaber duel, I’m betting) between Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan, Scopes was convicted of teaching that humans had evolved from lower order animals – a charge that Scopes never challenged. Scopes was in fact a willing volunteer to a pre-planned challenge to the Butler Act proposed by the ACLU. The conviction was overturned on appeal. Ruling on a technical rather than legal issue, the Tennessee Supreme Court dismissed the verdict because the sentence (a 100$ fine) was issued by the judge and not the jury.

Mother of mongoose! My wife is wicked smart! She just dictated that whole mess of knowledge while driving the car, getting my oldest daughter to leave my youngest daughter alone and reading a news report about the anniversary of the Scopes Monkey Tri…

Damn her.

As near as I can tell, Scopes did more to raise the issue than to settle it. In the United States, the matter was not settled until 1968 when, in Epperson v. Arkansas, the US Supreme Court ruled that laws forbidding evolution from schools was unconstitutional.

Meanwhile, 1968 was also the year that Bill Clinton got an unusual 1-A draft deferment from Vietnam and officially became a weasel. For writing that, Rush Limbaugh will send me a cigar.

The dramatic high-point of the trial was an exchange where Darrow and Bryan argue the literal interpretation of the Genesis account. By all accounts it was such a debate that the model of the argument itself changed. Darrow challenged the Biblical account as being incomplete, asking Bryan to account for the creation of Cain’s wife.

Bryan, in the best spirit of unmovable apologetics, answered that the agnostics could sort that out. For him, the inconsistency was not very important. Say what you will about Bryan and Darrow, they were both very impressive brains.

Today, after 83 years of leaning progress and technology, we get two fine specimens of humanity who wish to argue postulate blather on that the similarities between soda cans and banana’s prove that god exists.

The obvious stupidity of that should make your head hurt. If it doesn’t, I think I might be having a stroke.

SINCE YOU RUMMAGED THROUGH MY MOST PRIVATE AND INTIMATE THOUGHTS LIKE A PERV IN A PANTY DRAWER, DO ME ANOTHER FAVOR AND HEAD OVER TO Humor-Blogs.com. WHEN YOU GET THERE, PLEASE RATE THIS POST. YOUR VOTES KEEP MY TRAFFIC UP, AND THAT’S THE ONLY THING KEEPING ME OUT OF THE GREEK NAVY.

Sex!?! On my Internets!?!

I recently returned to this blog to a standing ovation of indifference; a thunderous cacophony of people milling about politely. Then, without warning, 49 free hits leapt tiger-like from the shrubbery of the Interwebs and fell upon me; a grumpy, chain-smoking, gazelle with back problems and a mortgage. Such an event, or when my keyboard will not function because of Cheez-It sludge, gives me pause as well and a bout of abdominal cramps.

While drinking antacid like Gatorade, I discovered that 49 instances of the same search term had brought people to The Sinister Tower in a micro-burst of activity that lasted about 12 minutes. The phrase was “chris collinsworth hates keith olbermann“. I’m sure that this might be true, but 49 searches in less than 30 minutes? Are the Internets broken, with mine the only remaining page? Is someone looking to kill Mr. Olbermann and needs a scapegoat?

I have also concluded that many of you are awful, hideous freaks.

Three-headed, green lipped, dung-throwing presbyters commanding an army of talking monkeys would disconcert me less. Also, I could machine-gun such a monstrosity and be heralded as a hero. If I kill a fellow blogger, I think it’s a $50 fine.

Obviously, my traffic was coming from minimum security prisons more than the coffee room at the world headquarters of Mensa. My curious blend of high-intellect references and fart jokes brings in a mixed crowd.

Trivia; once admitted to the whispery, elite halls of Mensa, all you do is eat frozen waffles straight from the box and read Mack Bolan books.

Since I now know what brings you here, you must now know as well.

1. Peggy Noonan; Percentile Rank - 100.

Peggy is an accomplished speechwriter and author whom I barely remember calling a tool. Here’s the disturbing bit; when I Google search Peggy, this website does not show up in the first 15 pages. But if you image search Peggy on Google, I’m the 15^th result in the entire damn universe. Given that some of the Peggy searches also included the word ‘sex’, I’m inclined to think that people are searching for Peggy for the purposes of lewd, 58-year-old conservative self-gratification.

I have serious problems with this, and not because Peggy is almost 60 and looks like a well-coiffed guidance counselor. I have problems with this because Peggy also looks like the very sympathetic woman at the bank who keeps denying your car loan.

But let’s hear from Peggy:

“Now he is a statesman, when what he really wants is to be what most reporters are, adult delinquents.”

Honestly, I have no idea what this means. However, I think it’s clear from “adult delinquents” that Peggy is an epic tease, albeit a very unsettling one. Moving on…

2. Nigella Lawson; Percentile Rank - 66.

I brought this one on myself when I posted a publicity still of Nigella being orally amorous with some ice cream and claimed to have written x-rated poetry about her. Nigella is the ‘domestic goddess’ of the UK. Presumably endowed with supernatural abilities, cooking seems like a supremely stupid thing for her to do for a living. Regardless, she has also become well-known for appearing as if, without warning, she might have sex with her entire kitchen. Nigella has also been in a provocative picture or two in her life. I guess I can see how this would come together, so please dream of climbing Mount Lawson at your leisure. My only note on this is that since the most notorious British dessert is something called “spotted dick”, I would implore you to wear a condom.

3. ‘Hidden’ and ‘bathroom’ sex; Combined Percentile Rank - 65.

Other than my post on Larry Craig, I don’t want to know what you were looking for. If I could locate you, I would send you the bill for having my lot on the Interwebs scoured with bleach.

4. Old Boobs (not counting Bill Donohue); Combined Percentile Rank - 35

This is the combined score for people wanting to see the breasts of former congressbeing Katherine Harris and Canadian TV chef Christine Cushing. If I smash myself in the head really hard, I can kind of get this. If dried apricots with little hats on them is your thing, that’s great. But please do it somewhere else.

If I could suggest to the people who have a chef/breast fetish that they might tune in to the obviously insane Giada De Laurentiis, who flings her bosoms around the studio with almost hilarious disregard. Seriously, it’s like an exhibit at the Air and Space Museum. Or you could ask Mario Batali to take his shirt off.

5. Captain Catholic (see #4); Percentile Rank - 24

This is presumably in reference to Bill Donohue. Searches for Bill will only increase now that I’ve mentioned ‘spotted dick‘.

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So there you are. I will ask you not to consider that these searches only work because I seem to be writing about this stuff, albeit not intentionally.

My bad.

Please Visit Humor-Blogs.com and rate this post.

102 Days Later.

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Yeah, yeah, I’ve been away for a while. But where the hell were you? That’s what I thought. No, I won’t accept your apology. So there, jerk. My long absence proves only one thing; I am the coolest internet person not on the internet in the entire internet. There’s really no other way to interpret it.

Laziness?

I don’t think so, Jim. A lazy person would continue to write when they had nothing to say, just so that they could claim that they were meeting some basic standard of minimum activity.

Not only have I not written anything for 102 days, but I had some really good material that I elected not to share. I had a kicker about Tim Russert, but then he died and now I have nothing to do on Sunday mornings, because now it IS NOT Meet the Press.

Imagine what a laugh explosion that would have been. Ha! He loved his family!

So if I had all this great material, why did I not post?

Because I am the coolest internet person who is not on the internet in the entire internet. Yeesh!

Even now that you’ve read this, you can’t really say that I’m on the internet; at best, I’m just passing through. This post will be violently truncated down to about 800 words so that the best material is left on the floor of my spare bedroom. If I only wrote 800 words in 102 two days, that’s an average of 47 letters per day. You should have no trouble in accepting that this piece of crap has so far only been on my mind for about 12 minutes.

Somnambulating dog bucket. Flautists’ throbbing warble

That’s 47 letters, incidentally. So take that into account,…and yes, you read that correctly; throbbing warble.

THROBBING WARBLE.

If that doesn’t catch on as the next big thing, there’s a serious problem with the world.

Some bloggers, like my good friend Matt, will let you know when they’re going to be gone for a bit. Ironically, he is then hardly gone at all. Matt suffers from being a consistent and conscientious blogger concerned with producing material regularly and at a high level.

It’s kind of sick, if you ask me. However, Matt has not asked me since he is deafened by the sound of hits rolling in from his blog.

I on the other hand, was reminded of the internet coolness of not being on the internet at all. I was reminded of this by having no traffic.

But there is a conflict here; I am an attention whore. Every blogger, except for this guy, is an attention whore; it’s just the way we are. If you think about the medium, what could be more self-promoting than publishing a product that no one asked for and that generates no material benefits?

You know, like the Methodists. Zing! Religious bigotry!

Is it possible to think that someone can write five hundred words on their favorite version of Final Fantasy (paradox alert!) and not be self-indulgent? If you write three posts a week about your dog and the whacky relative that lives in your garage can you not be an attention whore?

But I can be an attention whore and be the coolest internet person not on the internet on the internet by not posting and by not giving you anything particular in the way of whoreishness.

Here’s why;

1.    Matt, who can bear this abuse because no one will read my blog while the entire nation of Portugal tunes in for his, takes a ‘mini-vacation’ and does not post for nearly three and a half hours. Coolness = 1.

2.    I, who can withstand and sometimes enjoy my own abuse, say that I’m going to take a mini vacation and then don’t come back for two thousand four hundred and forty eight hours. Coolness = 1.5

3.    I say nothing, I do nothing, I write nothing and I still have the putrid comeuppance to return to my internet hacienda and ask you to read for me. That’s so conflicted…Coolness = a billion = ME!

Microsoft Office tells me that our time together is nearly over, so I need to discuss the new paradigm in what is the severe antithesis of my coolness.

Diesel.

This creature is the half man, half internet traffic maw who runs the vicious crime syndicate known as humor-blogs.com. As a result of his debilitating addiction to opium and drinkable yogurt, Diesel will entirely alter the scheme of those of us pitiable enough to be rated on his internet sweatshop (incidentally, we don’t get any sweat for our work).

But I’m so cool that I won’t beg you to click on this link, and then poke this smiley in the uvula.

If you think begging is more cool, I can do that too.

Unthrobbing Flautist? Get Warbling At Humor-Blogs.com !!

Hillary Clinton (D-Liar)

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I almost never do this, because I don’t take sides, but this story itches me worse than ticks in the nether regions. If you ever want to know the real meaning of dishonest, just have an election.

I originally made a typo (or a Freudian slip) and ended that last sentence with “just hold an erection”. Both will lead you to considerable amounts of dishonesty, but erections don’t generally last for a year and a half.

Exhibit ‘A’: the current Democratic primary. I am neutral if Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both lose and hold hands (or an erection) as the Presidential Oath of Office is administered to a handful of asparagus. I will not fret if they both return to the Senate and diminish through their careers arguing the merits of modern dance subsidies for radio astronomers and badger wrangling.

If I cared less, I would have to be in a coma or a Scientologist or a sofa cushion or something.
But here’s my problem; Hillary Clinton is kind of a disingenuous sack of crap. When I write “kind of” I mean that she is not, as far as I know, an actual sack.

I know that I’m the first to question the honesty of a Clinton, and I apologize for that. But Hillary Clinton is trying to trick you; shocking I know.

Yes, to your obvious rebuttal, I know that calling only one, specific Senator dishonest is like calling only one, specific Amish person a quaint yet dangerously backwards Luddite. Apparently, if I’m to be taken at my word, I have a problem with the Amish. However, if you’re careful, you would never take me at my word.

Most recently, while oiling and stroking her international résumé, Clinton recalled that she had traveled to Bosnia in 1996 during her tenure as First Lady:

“I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.”

However this is not entirely true, insofar as it appears to be a bald-faced, weasel-exploding lie. Video abounds on the Amazing Tantalizing Trans-computer Network with Hillary getting flowers from little Bosnian kids and looking like the oldest model in the LL Bean catalogue.

In response to this obvious bit of fiction, her campaign replied that she ‘misspoke‘.

Misspoke? If a guy you just met is named Ron and you accidentally call him Don, then you misspoke. Ever said Tuesday when you meant Thursday? Ever said ‘next weekend’ when you meant ‘this weekend’? That’s misspeaking. Let’s take a closer look:

Example A: Last Tuesday…I mean last Thursday, I went for drinks with Jim.

Example B: Last Thursday I went for drinks with Jim, and he was killed by mortar fire from Ottoman Turks. When the Ottoman Turks entered the bar, I slew them with my light saber and the laser that shoots napalm from my nipples – yeah, I know what “laser” means. They almost got me too, but at the last minute that really hot chick from Terminator Chronicles showed up and helped me out. Go, USA!!!

The second example is probably the one upon which you should focus. Also, she misspoke the same thing more than once, including in a prepared speech.

If you cheat on your spouse by nailing a co-worker in the shower, you would not likely get away with it by pleading that you had bathed incorrectly. Even accountants have a joke about it. They call corporate embezzlement “expressionist math”.

The existence or non-existence of a sniper is not a matter upon which you misspeak; it’s a matter of fact. Facts are peculiar things because, sadly, you can be wrong. When you are wrong on purpose then you are a damn dirty liar who needs to get some toady on your staff to go out and say that you “misspoke” or else you won’t let him be Secretary in Charge of Rodents and Other Metaphorically Dishonest Animals when you become President.

I’m sure that Senator Obama may have lied about his past as well. I’m sure that in the same year Hillary claimed to be taking fire in Bosnia, Barack was helping community organizers by sitting in a church hall somewhere drinking too much bad coffee and killing 9 hours a day on the PlayStation. However, at least Senator Obama has not recalled a specific day where he fought off angry beavers in defense of liberty when we have tape of him trying to get the Hummer in Twisted Metal to fire its Patriot missiles.

Being under fire is serious business and people die when it happens. If you want to lie about having inventing the Internet or how you know ‘secret judo’ and that’s why you’re such a good kisser, then that’s fine. But when you try to wrap your sneaky ass in the character of people who have been shot at, it’s kind of like stealing herpes medication in order to get sympathy. Not all lies are created equal, some are more serious, some are more slimy.

Don’t take my word for it, ask JFK.

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