The Hairy, the Toothy, and the Black Beating Hearts

     Here we are again, friends and neighbors, and I welcome you one and  all. I think it's time to once again delve into the dark and strange business of weird and possibly funny stories, and boy, do I have some stuff for you. Some pretty good stuff, involving a controversial sculpture (which I did not sculpt) of Jesus, a unexpected tumor (which is not mine,) and a few other things that have very little to do with me, or you, most likely, but may interest you nonetheless.
     Or maybe they won't. But they might. Let's just say they will, that way everyone (me) wins. Fair?
     Fair like the maidens in the stories about yore.
     Okay, first we're gonna run through a few things real quick, because that's what I feel like doing.
     Hey, remember that one time when I wrote about how some science people were going to try to clone a Woolly Mammoth? Well, turns out they're still going to try and do it, and they (the science people) seem pretty sure they can. Which is why I'd like to remind everyone that my birthday is in June, and I could use a pet that doubles as the coolest thing a person could have.
     Also, speaking of presents and things I've written about before, still waiting on that Roomba money, people.
     Quick one the next, I found an article entitled 'The Science of the Selfie.' I didn't read it, because of course I didn't read it. Please forgive me if I refuse to think of everyone with a camera on their phone as a scientist. Next.
     I found an article entitled 'Shoot! NASA has More Bad News About Arctic Ice and Global Warming.' This was pretty much exactly what the title says it is, ice is melting and global warming is happening and is still bad for us. However, I don't see the word 'shoot' used as an exclamation in the title of a news article very often, and I thought it was worth mentioning.
     Also, global warming is bad. Cut it out.
     Final quick one, and then we get to tumors and Jesus. This one's called 'Red and Dead Galaxies Have Beating Black Hole "Hearts," Preventing Star Formation.' Now I won't go into specifics, but I will say if you like space stuff (which you should,) find it and read it. I just brought it up because the title is amazing.
     Beating black hole hearts? Come on.
     Okay, now we get to the meaty stuff, the really crazy stuff. First, the tumor. Check this out:
     Doctors in Maryland found a tumor in the brain of a four month old child. First things first, the tumor has been removed and the child is fine. But wait, as they say, there's more.
     The tumor had fully grown teeth in it.
     That's right, your eyes do not deceive you, and neither do I. Fully grown human teeth. In a tumor. In a brain. For real. On this planet. And everything.
     Screwy.
     Okay, last one, and it's about (as promised) Jesus. More accurately, it's about a sculpture of Jesus in South Carolina. Yet more accurately still, it's about a sculpture of Jesus, wrapped in a blanket, and sleeping on a park bench like a homeless person. The idea, which seems pretty clear to me, is to remind us that Jesus is on the side of the marginalized. You can get one, if you want, for a little under $3,000.
     But the real fun here is that the particular one in question, which lies (literally) in front of a church in South Carolina, has given some really outstanding people the chance to show us all that one doesn't need a brain full of teeth to have an interesting mind. One lady, who I just don't want to name because I don't, complained about this representation because, as she says, "Jesus is not a vagrant. Jesus is not a helpless person who needs our help. We need someone who is capable of meeting our needs, not someone who is also needy."
     Never mind the actual point of the sculpture, and never mind how she's clearly missed it, and never mind whatever personal insecurities she may or may not be (but definitely is) exposing here. What I want to know is how she can rationalize going on television to defend her savior by saying he doesn't need anyone's help? Is this what Selfie Science is? Did I misjudge that article?
     ...nah.
     Oh, she also mentions that the first time she saw it she called the police, because she thought it was a real homeless person. Which is beautiful.
     However, unlike the Jesus in question, she is not on her own and in need of assistance. There are other like minded individuals in the neighborhood, including one who wrote a letter to the local news website, in which he explained that  his objection was about people visiting this nice, pretty neighborhood and seeing an "ugly homeless person sleeping on a park bench. It is also about walking by this sculpture at night and (dig this) passing within a few inches of the grim reaper."
     Can you believe that? The grim reaper! Terrifying, indeed.
     But my favorite part of the letter is this part, which I will now relate to you, so it can be your favorite part as well: " I have stepped over actual homeless people sleeping on a sidewalk in New York City and not been as creeper out as I am walking past this sculpture."
     I put that in italics, I love it so.
     By the by, if you ever encounter anyone who has trouble understanding the concept of irony...
-John

Stuffed Bears and Such.

     So here we find ourselves yet again, friends and neighbors, on what is possibly the most grudgingly observed of holidays, with so many significant others running around trying to find some stuffed sort of fauna or collection of prearranged flora that will appropriately make up for the other 364 days of the year in which partners are taken for granted. It is indeed a time for "love," and if I could further emphasize the quote marks on that, perhaps capitalize them or something, you'd best believe I would. I, being unattached and thus with plenty of free time on this day, have decided to sit down and expound on something that isn't this day. I am, in fact, going in quite the opposite direction, as I intend to bring to your awareness a few people that seem to have made it their business to not deserve any of the aforementioned flora and fauna of love this year.
     Don't worry though (because I'm sure you were,) it'll still be fun. Now let's get to it!
     We begin, as we must, with Billy Ray Cyrus. I know, no one likes to begin with him, or finish with him, or put him somewhere in the middle. Unfortunately for us though, we must, because I already wrote it. Ol' Billy Ray, much to the world's mortification, has re-released his claim to fame, this time as a rap song.
     Just marinate on the concept for a second, and then we'll move along.
     Okay, onward.
      Now granted, it wasn't his idea, this gem instead being the brainchild of rapper Buck 22, but still. It happened, and there's a video, and ultimately the blame remains with Billy Ray, or as I like to call him, William Raymond. This is so because not only did he approve, he even appears in the video, getting beamed aboard a spaceship in order to party with the space ladies, who are dressed about like you would think. Not that I watched it, oh no. No no. I just read about it, I swear. Believe me, that's plenty, in my book.
     And before anyone starts harping on me about judging something before I actually put myself through it, take another second and think on it, wont' you? It's "Achy Breaky Heart" as a rap song, with William Raymond Cyrus at a party on a spaceship. I can't even force myself to watch that on an ironic level, and if you can, I think it may be time for you to shave your handlebar mustache, trade in your thick black framed glasses, and let this fad of only doing things for the sake of irony be done. Remember, we all eventually become the thing we mock most. And you do not want to be William Raymond ( I don't even know why, but that 'William Raymond' thing really gives me the chuckles.)
     Moving on.
     Next we've gotta talk about Drake, even though I really wish we didn't, but I picked this topic, so I guess I'm stuck with it. This fellow has done us all the favor of complaining vociferously about how he was booted from the cover of Rolling Stone, despite having given an interview and everything, which he claims he will never do again (oh how, oh how, oh how will we go on.) The reason Drake lost out on his coveted cover?
     Philip Seymour Hoffman died, and Rolling Stone put him on the cover instead, to go with a memorial article. Drake confessed to being "disgusted" with this turn of events, and declared the press to be evil.
     Though he did say, in that same tweet, "All respect due." and "R.I.P." So, you know, everything's okay, right? Boy, I sure do hope poor Drake has someone to help him through these times of tragedy and adversity. Maybe he'll use this pain, so wrongly inflicted on him, to fuel his next album, since he's at least alive to make one.
     And finally, because I always save my favorite piece of candy in the box for last, is the always entertaining and obviously honorable Senator Rand Paul, who has earned his spot here because of an article I read entitled "Rand Paul Leads Attack on Hilary Over Lewinsky Affair." In it, Senator Paul says that Democrats should return any money raised on their behalf by Bill Clinton, in order to protest the affair he had back before everyone had a cell phone. Otherwise, claiming to be the party of women's rights would be hypocritical. Because of his affair. I do like how this kind of highlights that Republicans don't make that claim themselves. This way they can keep any money raised by their adulterers without pretense, since they don't have any strong claims involving marriage.
     But that, as silly and desperate as it is, is really just another political attack, sure to be washed in the deluge as things ramp up for 2016. What's especially, jarringly, glaringly interesting here is that through a number of pieces of correspondence between Hilary and her then best friend, Diane Blair, the Honorable Senator of Kentucky and his equally distinguished colleagues are trying to paint Hilary as a ruthless and too politically ambitious human being.
     Talk about  hypocritical.
     The examples they're using, based on what I read, include things like Hilary making derogatory statements about Lewinsky, as well as taking some measure of enjoyment in the fact that at the time of the affair, it really irked some of her enemies that she and Bill didn't make any problems his affair caused their marriage a big crazy public spectacle. This apparently makes her cold and emotionless, because as we all know thanks to reality television, the only way a real person would behave when confronted with infidelity is to make the biggest scene possible, in order to get viewers.
     My disdain for Senator Paul after reading this article has grown immensely, to the point where instead of making a final joke about what a miserable and self destructive political maneuver this was, I'm just going to put a another quote from Hilary's correspondence used in this article:
     "I'm a proud woman." "I'm not stupid." I know I should do more to suck up to the press, and I know it confuses people when I change my hairdos. I know I should pretend not to have any opinions. But I'm just going to."
     Now that deserves some fluffy fauna and prearranged colorful flora, right there.
-John
   
     
   

The Return of St. John the Amenable!

     After many months abroad (one month,) and many more months of introspective laziness (many more than one,) the return of Saint John the Amenable, Patron Saint of This Kind of Behavior Makes Us All Look Bad and I Wish It Would Stop, is upon us, friends and neighbors. I have, you may have noticed (not that I'd bet money on it,) been absent from the public forum, leaving humanity to wallow in the linguistic blood of its insistent butchery, cleaving at the spoken and written word with the brutal precision that non-words like 'totes' and 'lolz' and the simply putrid 'yolo' provide. And I, humble and modest and forgiving as I am, had spoken not a word against it in some time, seeking instead my own personal solace (did not find.)
     No longer. No longer shall I feign my indifference, hiding behind gentle smiles of tolerance when I hear things like 'exspecially' and 'sherbert' and 'everyone should just speak english.' I have returned from my soul searching (meh) in the wilderness, all hairy and unkempt, like an angst-ridden superhero in the beginning of a cinematic reboot.
     So what has brought about my return, you ask? What has called me from my hermitage, to stand before you all, once again ready and willing to defy the darkness with my shining beacon of resolved refusal, punctilious persistence, and energy efficient light?
     Because Oxford Dictionaries chose the word 'selfie' as its word of the year, that's why.
     Now don't get me wrong; it's not, as has often been the case, because I object to the existence of the word. Verily, I do not. In fact, despite, or perhaps because of, how phonetically obnoxious it is, I find it one of the more useful new words to be created in recent years. This is because, and I believe I am not alone here, I find it hard to apply the more dignified term 'self portrait' to these photos, especially when so many of them have toilets in the background.
     So, as a word, it's appropriate enough, even though the necessity of it chafes a bit. Word of the year, though? Just because it's the word we choose to label the most ubiquitous display of human vanity we currently employ, does that mean it should be used to define the year? Surely, and for the sake of that self same vanity, we can find something that wouldn't expose us so fully, and with so little photo correction. So I went looking, and sure as geese love ganders, I found some things.
     First, I found that Merriam Webster had picked a word of the year as well, and that word was 'science.' At first I liked it, because hooray for science. My joy was quickly dissolved, however, because it turned out the Merry men and women of Merriam had made their selection because it had the greatest increase in look-ups. Coming from people that make their living off a book used for looking up words, that seems a tad too self-serving for a Saint such as myself. Self-serving 'science' serves no one in the end, people. Especially since so many people actually had to look it up.
     Meanwhile, over at Dictionary the Dot Com, the word of the year was designated to be 'privacy.' This is obviously right out as a serious contender, considering how little of it actually existed in its assigned year. Sorry, 'privacy,' maybe when people stop posting selfies and 'checking in' to any and every single place they happen to find themselves, you can try again.
     So we find ourselves once again stranded, I'm afraid. Lost little lambs, languishing and longing, lonely for legitimate locution. 'Selfie,' appropriately enough, doesn't quite leave enough to the imagination. 'Science,' as many of our faith based populace will enthusiastically tell you, is a bit too self-serving and biased. And choosing 'privacy' is just as ridiculous as demanding it via the internet. So, if the vanity of 'selfies,' the self service of 'science', and the disqualification of 'privacy' all get proposed, but ultimately fail, to wholly represent a year, what word should we use? Vanity, self-service, and a total lack of privacy... hmmm...
     Hey, I've got one! Yes, yes, I think I do, and I, as your (self-appointed) apocrisiary of articulation, shall provide it post-haste.
     I suggest the word 'tracasserie,' a noun, from the french, meaning "a turmoil; annoyance."
     I wonder how many people were expecting me to say 'internet.'
     I thought about it.
-St. John