Blogging: Fatgoons, Another Blog (tag: blog blogs, blogging, bLoG, BLOG)

Fat Goons Blog

What is this, you might ask? A link for my browser? Not on my Internet, good sir, you say. Or, if you were a goon, you might say "goon sire." But if you were a goon you would understand the purpose of the above-posted link implicitly. Confused?

Once upon a time there was a little angry man who worked in the video game journalism industry, a position somewhere between fluffer and Governor of Illinois on the great continuum of respectability. This little angry man thought that he was too good for VoodooExtreme.com, the site at which he worked (and which is currently owned by IGN, along with half of the rest of the internet), and he sought to branch out. Often, while immersed in the excitement of copyediting the reviews of video games made by the big-shot video game journalists at the site, this little angry man would consider the game in question and remark "this sure is something awful!" to no one in particular, for the little man had alienated the staff at VoodooExtreme.com with his less-than-pleasant demeanor. When he wasn't busy failing college classes or contemplating the uselessness of his existence, this angry man dreamed of opening his own website, where he could catalogue all kinds of very awful video games. From his wildest flight of fancy he returned with a name: SomethingAwful.com.

The little angry man? Richard "Lowtax" Kyanka. And he succeeded, beyond his most egregious hopes.

Indeed, what began as a website for the express purpose of mocking dreary video games soon blossomed into a hub of internet comedy. You see, the site also hosted a general-purpose webforum, and in a lot of respects this became more popular than the main site, to such an extent that for a time the catchphrase "there's a front page?!" had considerable currency among veteran posters. While the majority of the humour at Something Awful found its origin in video games, inevitably all kinds of discussions were undertaken on the boards: politics, automobiles, sex, life, money, business, etc. It's important to note that a very specific kind of person is going to be drawn to a site that concerns itself mainly with comedy derived from computer games. By and large, this sort of person is fat, bearded, lonely, socially awkward, and possibly smelly, and the members of the Something Awful forums are no exception to this stereotype. Indeed, their penchant for anti-social behaviour both on and off-line in time earned the posters of this forum the nickname goon (see Fig. 1). There is some history to this.

Figure 1: Typical Goons

One of the features of the main site was Mr. Kyanka's "Awful Link of the Day." Every day, without fail, Richard or one of the posters on the forum would dredge up an example of a terrible website, and would post it on Something Awful with a small capsule review, encouraging the world to visit the site to let its owner know just how terrible it was. The site might be poorly coded, or full of animated kittens and jangling background MIDIs, or even dedicated to the lurid business of pedophilia; whatever the case, as long as it offended the sensibilities of a certain little angry webmaster, it was fair game. People who were linked on Something Awful often found their servers overrun by a new flood of external traffic, mostly in the form of either fans of Something Awful or posters on its forums. These folk were liable to make something of a mess when visiting an Awful Link: they would ravage the website's guestbook, make obscene comments on its forums, harass the webmaster with offensive e-mails, and so forth. Those linked were rarely pleased with their misfortune, and often let Mr. Kyanka know by e-mail about their displeasure. Mr. Kyanka, in turn, would post their e-mails on the forums and make sarcastic comments for the amusement of his followers. One day, a particularly simple-minded webmaster, rather irate on account of the desecration at the hands of Something Awful fans of a website which served as a memorial for dozens of her departed cats, and well-versed in empty American radio talk-show rhetoric, accused Mr. Kyanka of having sent his "goons" after her. The term was adopted by the hateful and maladjusted members of this forum as a badge of pride: from then on, they were goons. Goons had secret code phrases so they could identify each other in real life. Goons expressed remorse for the misfortunes of fellow goons by uttering a solemn phrase: "goondolences." Goons also believed in the existence of a sworn Goon Brotherhood, which reflected their ideals and provided a centre for their way of life. Hence "goon sire" above: believing themselves to be lumpen kings among men, goons felt it necessary to create a new vocabulary suited to their elevated status. Their incestuous brand of pidgin-English only reinforced the native arrogance of the goons, since potential challengers, in the form of non-goons, could rarely make themselves understood.

As has already been mentioned, it's pretty clear what sort of person would put stock in this kind of thing: loners, fatties, autistics, or some combination thereof. To the rest of the internet, and indeed to the more discerning members of the forums themselves, "goon" became a term of derision. Extreme social awkwardness was termed "goony," as was an unhealthy obsession with artery-hardening food (and an utter inability to live like a civilized human being: see Fig. 2).

Figure 2: Typical Goon Habitation (aka "Gooncave")

Indeed, goons became infamous for their disturbing feats of gluttony, which they celebrated on the website with long writeups and with high-quality digital photography. Such feats include the construction entirely from meat of a five-pound model British galleon, the consuming in one go of a gallon of milk, the invention of the "hot-dog rollup," a baked half-pound German sausage covered in two pounds of regular ground beef and 10 oz of American cheddar, and so on.

Thus the fatgoon blog: created as a tribute to the acts of excess on the part of the members of Something Awful forums, it serves as a reminder to all of us how far it is possible to fall in life. When you and your four-hundred pound bulk are reclining in a fetid trailer in West Virgina consuming five pound tubs of Mike and Ikes while watching anime, you know it's time for a lifestyle change. But goons will be goons.

Good night, goon sire.

"Eat your heart out, Rodin."

Theft: Someone Else's Much Better Work

Laugh. Live. Love. No time for a "real" blog post; instead laugh (perhaps for the first time while visiting this site!) at something a much better classicist wrote. I've been driven mad by Aeschylus, so it's good to know I'm not the only one.

Fragment of a Greek Tragedy
by A.E. Housman

CHORUS: O suitably-attired-in-leather-boots
Head of a traveller, wherefore seeking whom
Whence by what way how purposed art thou come
To this well-nightingaled vicinity?
My object in inquiring is to know.
But if you happen to be deaf and dumb
And do not understand a word I say,
Then wave your hand, to signify as much.

ALCMAEON: I journeyed hither a Boetian road.
CHORUS: Sailing on horseback, or with feet for oars?
ALCMAEON: Plying with speed my partnership of legs.
CHORUS: Beneath a shining or a rainy Zeus?
ALCMAEON: Mud's sister, not himself, adorns my shoes.
CHORUS: To learn your name would not displease me much.
ALCMAEON: Not all that men desire do they obtain.
CHORUS: Might I then hear at what thy presence shoots.
ALCMAEON: A shepherd's questioned mouth informed me that--
CHORUS: What? for I know not yet what you will say.
ALCMAEON: Nor will you ever, if you interrupt.
CHORUS: Proceed, and I will hold my speechless tongue.
ALCMAEON: This house was Eriphyle's, no one else's.
CHORUS: Nor did he shame his throat with shameful lies.
ALCMAEON: May I then enter, passing through the door?
CHORUS: Go chase into the house a lucky foot.
And, O my son, be, on the one hand, good,
And do not, on the other hand, be bad;
For that is much the safest plan.
ALCMAEON: I go into the house with heels and speed.

CHORUS

Strophe

In speculation
I would not willingly acquire a name
For ill-digested thought;
But after pondering much
To this conclusion I at last have come:
LIFE IS UNCERTAIN.
This truth I have written deep
In my reflective midriff
On tablets not of wax,
Nor with a pen did I inscribe it there,
For many reasons: LIFE, I say, IS NOT
A STRANGER TO UNCERTAINTY.
Not from the flight of omen-yelling fowls
This fact did I discover,
Nor did the Delphine tripod bark it out,
Nor yet Dodona.
Its native ingunuity sufficed
My self-taught diaphragm.

Antistrophe

Why should I mention
The Inachean daughter, loved of Zeus?
Her whom of old the gods,
More provident than kind,
Provided with four hoofs, two horns, one tail,
A gift not asked for,
And sent her forth to learn
The unfamiliar science
Of how to chew the cud.
She therefore, all about the Argive fields,
Went cropping pale green grass and nettle-tops,
Nor did they disagree with her.
But yet, howe'er nutritious, such repasts
I do not hanker after:
Never may Cypris for her seat select
My dappled liver!
Why should I mention Io? Why indeed?
I have no notion why.

Epode

But now does my boding heart,
Unhired, unaccompanied, sing
A strain not meet for the dance.
Yes even the palace appears
To my yoke of circular eyes
(The right, nor omit I the left)
Like a slaughterhouse, so to speak,
Garnished with woolly deaths
And many sphipwrecks of cows.
I therefore in a Cissian strain lament:
And to the rapid
Loud, linen-tattering thumps upon my chest
Resounds in concert
The battering of my unlucky head.

ERIPHYLE (within): O, I am smitten with a hatchet's jaw;
And that in deed and not in word alone.
CHORUS: I thought I heard a sound within the house
Unlike the voice of one that jumps for joy.
ERIPHYLE: He splits my skull, not in a friendly way,
Once more: he purposes to kill me dead.
CHORUS: I would not be reputed rash, but yet
I doubt if all be gay within the house.
ERIPHYLE: O! O! another stroke! that makes the third.
He stabs me to the heart against my wish.
CHORUS: If that be so, thy state of health is poor;
But thine arithmetic is quite correct.

Considerations: The Old World and You

"Progress" is a loaded term. Its Latin roots suggest movement forward, that is, movement which follows the path laid out by the eyes, not that of the arse. A contrast: eyeward movement is good, assward movement bad. When we speak of ourselves and of our society, we often do so in reference to progress, as though moving forward, away from our collective ass-history, is a good thing; if only we could get over the horizon, we say to ourselves, if only we could be in that spot placed by our eyes some fifteen to twenty kilometers distant, depending on weather conditions. There lies happiness. Here, we think, is misery; to go backwards, tantamount to death by strangulation with one's own intestines. Thus our disdain for history, for the old, the ancient, the antiquarian, the antediluvian, the mediaeval, for the arthritic elderly, and so our love for the modern, the contemporary, the chic, the what-have-you. But I think there is much to be said for the occasional sojourn-by-ass. The history of the human race, after all, is not necessarily a tale of uninterrupted "progress," rather it is one of fits and starts, of spastic lunges for material satisfaction and spiritual fulfillment, convulsions of ecstasy, amputations of disaster, and, above all, sinus headaches of human-wrought suffering; if we recognize this fact, then we come to understand that what lies before our the eyes in our head is not necessarily better than that which our asshole's eye beholds. As evidence, I give you five excellent developments of the past that we have abandoned, possibly to our own detriment.

1. Slavery
"Radical opinion, Blogmaster," I hear you sneering to yourself, as you adjust your plastic-rimmed glasses and consider returning to surfing deviantart to look for new anime tattoo inspirations. "Go for the obviously racist idea, that's the height of comedy. Ugh," you say, twittering your disgust to an uncaring and mostly illiterate world. But this is no Michael Richards-esque piece of shock-schlock. I'm not suggesting a return to the racist slavery of America's past, a eugenically-justified bit of social terror totally divorced from political reality. No, I'm proposing a return to the slavery of the ancient world, that which resulted from military defeat. Now that would up the stakes of war. No longer would the world feel but mild indifference to Russia's rolling into Georgia unbidden and unannounced, to its seeking only political points and its wreaking a bit of ineffectual havoc. No; in my world, one of power unbridled and tyranny unshackled, their conquest of Georgia's Russian enclaves accomplished, the Reds would be saddled with some 20,000 slaves from the fatherland of Josef Stalin, which they could dispose of at their whim. Kill all the males, keep the children and women for breeding? You've got it, Putin. Put the males to work toiling in your vast underground vodka reservoirs, prostitute the women remorselessly, assemble the children into some kind of giant hideous flesh golem? Say the word, Dmitry. Either way, the consequences would be very real for both countries, and the rest of the Western world might have cause to react. The Ukraine, fearful of the ravishing Reds snatching their flowering maidens, might blockade Sevastapol and call up a few hundred thousand of their mostly toothless and permanently inebriated troops. The Poles might stop bidding up corrupt construction jobs for just a minute to consider the virtues of a well-guarded border. A return to slavery, then, would keep us all honest, at least from the point of view of realist international relations.

2. Cast-Iron Cookware
Have you ever said to yourself "I'm tired of convenient, carcinogenic, easy-to-clean teflon-coated carbon steel. I want something that's heavy, labour-intensive, that saturates my food with base metals, and which smells bad when maintained." Well, look no further, my friend, for the ancient technology of cast-iron is making a comeback in kitchens everywhere. More than a few hoity-toity establishments offer you steaks seared in cast-iron, breaded-pickerel cooked in butter to tongue-waxing perfection in the heavy black, lemon-dill potato wedges, the flavour locked in thanks to the even heat of Connecticut-forged ferrum fusum. Your food, of course, tastes great, but they don't show you the work involved in using that lovely bit of old world iron. In order to make perfect meals daily, buy a cast-iron pan and do the following: first, one must scrub the shellac or wax from a new pan with steel wool and scalding hot water. Then, the pan must be dried (immediately, or the pan will rust solid and give you tetanus) and coated with oil; as to what kind of oil, opinions differ - the prospective cook must consider the age of the pan, casting technique, pore density, altitude, disposition of the planets, and so forth, in order to decide on the right oil to use. Or they can just slap some Crisco on. Once coated, the pan must be put in the oven for about an hour, at anywhere from 300 to 500 degrees Farenheit. At this stage there will be a lot of smoke, and all of your clothing will begin to smell like your granddad's fishing boots. Repeat this stage several times, in order to build up the "seasoning," or non-stick coating of the pan. When all this is done, you're ready to cook; just make sure you coat the pan in oil before you put it away or the pan will rust instantly (and give you tetanus).

3. Innocence toward Narcotics
As is well-known, Coca-Cola once contained a bit of actual cocaine. Elixirs of alcohol and opium were regularly perscribed for ailments ranging from retardation, water on the brain, lumberjack's rickets, miner's lung, dancer's knee, smoker's choice, and so on, all the way up to womanly hysteria. Cigar tubes containing a mixture of tobacco and marijuana were to be found in the humidors of even the well-heeled; the church bake sale raked in more than a little dough, so to speak, from the sale of ecstasy-laced "GoodTyme" muffins. Alcohol was used to calm infants and to slow their speech - thus the origin of the Southern drawl. It was a different time, before the advent of Prohibition. Now, this blogger dares you to try even to smoke a joint on the steps of your Legislature or state Capitol without getting thrown in the pokey. No, we need a return to the times when our medical establishment looked with cold, dispassionate, sometimes red and somnolent eyes at any potential remedy. Herodotus tells us that the Greeks used marijuana to make rope and to cure ear worms, and that the Scythians would put a little tent over hot rocks and throw in cannabis seeds; crouching down, they would inhale the smoke of the sizzling spermae, and dance a little dance in memory of their ancestors. What is more touching than this? While we heat up heroin on fire-blued diner spoons in the gutted basements of abandoned warehouses, the ancients were laughing it up over a j or two, or else engaging in solemn remembrance of deeds done and battles won while themselves battling a mad case of the munchies. How far we hath fallen.

4. Straight-blade Razors
Death is ever-present. Her cold, skeletal hand never really leaves your shoulder; her fetid, mouldering odour never quite dissipates, as even that of even of the rankest fart does; her sepulchral body, ever crouched over yours, is perpetually ready to ferry your anima, once parted from its earthbound shell, to the torments waiting below. We are too much divorced from the reality of death. We insulate ourselves from death. We rarely actively contemplate our own mortality. Indeed, all reminders of death are removed from our homes: guns are kept locked away, knives are put in the kitchen block, meat comes pre-sliced, the city administration gets mad if you refuse to dispose of your pile of goat carcasses in a timely fashion. What I propose, then, is that we introduce once more into our lives a daily reminder of death. What better way to meditate on our own mortality than by daily putting a lethally sharp instrument against our supple throats for fifteen minutes at a time? Thus the straight-blade razor. Wickedly sharp, it demands consummate skill and devoted care to avoid scarring yourself permanently. Unlike every other object in our overly-padded, safety-belted lives, the straight-razor does not forgive, does not forget. Drop it, and you chip the blade. Store it improperly, it rusts. Forget to sharpen it, enjoy your new pockmarked visage. The work the razor demands in the way of maintenance reminds us of the Sisyphean aspect of life, of the unceasing torment and labour that strangles us all, until our corpses, bereft of breath, are released, free to fall, all limp tumbling, into the Abyss below. Hone for three sessions, strop for two, make a virginal sacrifice on an odd-numbered day with kosher salt. Then your face must be prepared to accept Death's ambassador: pre-shave oil, hot towel for several minutes, lather, lather, apply cream, left hand shave, prayer, right hand shave, prayer, clean face, aftershave, tend to battle wounds. Our forefathers were masters of war and of the straight-razor. We, at least, should endeavour to make ourselves like them in one of these ways.

5. Minding Your Own Goddamn Business
Every gas station employee wants to know how I am these days. Every retail clerk. Every meat-slicer at the deli-counter. Every mid-tier prostitute wants to know how my day has gone. "Good," "Great," we say, or perhaps, "You'll talk when I pay you to talk." Everybody spends their whole day screeching into their cellphone about their latest business transaction, about their new gilded bong, about their boyfriend's sister's wedding and who fucked who in the coat closet there. I say, "Enough." I like to imagine there was a time when the world was full of square-jawed Protestant men who worked eighty hour weeks and who spoke only about their work, or else about their nightly dalliances with "that broad from the typing pool with those gams to die for." It's possible such a world never existed. I might be hearkening back to a Golden Age that never was. Nevertheless, I propose a new rule: "Shut Up For a Minute." Whenever you want to speak, stop and ask yourself, "Is it possible I could not be talking right now?" If so, don't talk. The world will be a happier and more reflective place, and kings and tyrants will have a much easier time of ruling their mute and useless subjects.

Dialogue: Ronald D. Moore Pitches "Darker" Re-Imagining of Classic Television

CHUCK GARABEDIAN: Mr. Moore. Thanks for being here today.

RON MOORE: It's my pleasure.

CHUCK: I understand you want to talk to the studio today about this series you're working on.

RON: Right. Yes. Well, you've all seen Battlestar: Galactica, right? I'm looking to do the same thing with that kid's show from a few years ago, Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers.

HAROLD LEWIS: Really.

RON: You've got it. The original series had a lot of unexploited potential, I think. And re-imaginings are all the rage now. I mean, they just had Enterprise, and they're putting Star Trek back up on the big screen. The formula's pretty simple. You take an old series, sex it up with some new special effects, invert the genders of a few critical characters, and, above all, make it darker, or, as I prefer, "darkÿr."

HAROLD: Darker... or "darker?"

RON: "Darkÿr."

HAROLD: "Darkÿr?"

RON: Precisely. So here's my take on the whole thing. Earth, 2027. The United Confederation of Allied States is engaged in war with the Federated Union of Aligned Sovereignties. The fighting is relentless; millions have died; the suffering is palpable. We do a few long shots of destroyed cities and mothers feeding their children the rotting flesh of their deceased fathers, while sister, hollow-eyed and incapable of tears, looks on, prayers for death leaving her softly-fluttering lips. Giant mechanized walkers roaming the wasteland, pumping machine gun fire into wearied refugees (and it has to be machine guns - lasers and shit aren't visceral or "darkÿr" enough). Then, suddenly, an alien threat: Rita Repulsa, lesbian witch-goddess of the planet Puk-Nak and that guy with the blue face have come in big spaceships at the command of Space Emperor Shrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaa'vu and seek to enslave humanity. We stand at a threshold: do we put aside our differences and unite to combat this new evil? Temporary truce is declared; a task force of both sides' soldiers is put together. Under an ancient Tibetan temple are found giant robots that come together to form a much larger robot. That robot is also gay and does not care very much for its father. But the robot can fly and shoot missiles and it will fight. At least, it will fight for as long as our Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers can conceal their loathing for one another and for all things living. Also, in the temple they find a prophecy concerning the fate of humanity, which will be revealed bit by bit and as I make it up. What I say in the fiftieth episode will probably not be at all consistent with what I say in the first. So. There you have it.

CHUCK: But what's the hook? I mean, in Battlestar you turned Richard Hatch into a woman. That got people saying "This guy has great big frackin' balls."

RON: Well, you remember the Putties, right?

CHUCK: The grey guys, all blooga blooga, yeah?

RON: Right. Well, it turns out they're all mutant experiments gone wrong, horrible semi-fetal laboratory-grown monsters. But they have an ounce of humanity, you see. I think in the first episode somebody will fall in love and have sex with one. And then it will be a ghost in that guy's mind for two more seasons, and then it will go away.

HAROLD: Wow. Why a ghost?

RON: Why anything? Life is doomed.

HAROLD: Huh. Well, I'm sold. What do you think, Chuck?

CHUCK: Ron, will there be a non-sensical plot and no fewer than eleven Mexican stand-offs an episode? Will everyone's teeth be perpetually gritted? Will levity be destroyed along with humanity's innocence?

RON: And how.

HAROLD: Sold. Ron, you've done it again. Collect your bag of money and armful of fawning IMDB posts at the door. Ask Janice, she'll know what to do.

Vignette: Scenes from Winnipeg Transit

Smoke hung thick in the air, tension thicker still. Naught but the sound of cards flipping and marriages failing could be heard. Glasses clinked, whiskey evaporated; satisfaction lay elsewhere. Men muttered, not to anyone in particular, not about anything in particular, but rather to affirm that they were still alive, that another mission lay ahead of them, that a spiteful God had not yet torn them loose from a hateful world - as they deserved, they would often nod, and would further confirm with a pensive drag on their John Player Specials. Tattooed flesh covered muscles made iron-hard by years of strenuous labour; by no means unfamiliar to them was the rough and tumble of city life. Lurching alcoholic, leering ethnic, rowdy teenager: all had met their match in the form of one of these men.

The doors burst open. Dim light met harsh, and hearts pounded.

“We’ve got a call-in on the 61 Express. Guy’s got to take his kid to Kenora today. It’s for fencing or something, I don’t really know.” The dispatcher narrowed his eyes. “Which one of you motherfuckers wants it?”

Silenced reigned amid the shaved heads and navy blue parkas. Then a grunt, the scraping of a chair, and the imposing bulk of Specialist Jack Henry filled the doorway. Looming over the dispatcher, he stubbed his cigarette on the man’s forehead and blew smoke into his face.

“Fuck you. We’ve lost two guys on that run this month. Who’s going to want it?”

Tears of pain streamed down the dispatcher’s face. Through gritted teeth:

“Chief says there’s time-and-a-half for whoever picks up the slack.”

Henry grinned.

“Well, that’s more like it.” He drew his sidearm and pulled the slide, loading a fateful round into the chamber. Brushing past the dispatcher, he made his way to the garage.

“Fuckin’ college kids won’t know what hit ‘em.”

The dispatcher shook his head.

“On-call guys. Fuckin’ cowboys. Nothin’ but fuckin’ cowboys.”