Ablogalypse Now

Today's 419 Scam Update

As I await word from my friends in Nigeria, I decided to take things a little further with the following update on the status of the Order.

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Dear Mr. Chichi,

I am very pleased and excited to inform you of several new developments that have transpired since our last communication.

To begin, we’ve received word from Sister Elephant in South America regarding the status of our great and glorious leader Pastor Ferguson. It appears that Pastor Ferguson has had a life-changing experience following his use of the hallucinogens I mentioned in my previous missive.

Pastor Ferguson has rejected the teachings of Sister Carrington and now believes himself to be the reincarnation of the late musician-poet Jim Morrison.  Furthermore, he now insists on being referred to as “The Lizard King” and intends to remain in the South American jungle and start a new religion based on Mr. Morrison’s writings.

Additionally, our translation of these ancient texts revealed several new bits of information that we were previously unaware of. Chief among these has been the revelation that Sister Carrington left behind a considerable amount of gold and priceless jewels that she buried deep beneath the foundation of our monastery.

Next, after much consternation, my brothers and I have finally completed translating Sister Carrington’s texts and I am pleased to inform you that I was right!!!! The line of succession was supposed to be determined by penis size and I am quite proud to say that I won hands down. Thanks very much for your prayers! I am now the new head of our Order.

As you can imagine, I have been quite busy preparing for this momentous transition. I’ve ordered a cappuccino machine, new wallpaper and new carpet for my office, and have mercilessly vanquished my brothers who were foolish enough to oppose me and question the veracity of my convictions. Rest assured, these miserable heretics are now being tortured within an inch of their lives for their transgressions.

In fact, I’ve decided that the Holy Church of The Order of The Red Breast has outlived its worth as a valid religion. And, in honor of my recent triumph over my puny brethren, and since I now have an incredible amount of wealth at my disposal, I’ve decided to disband the Order and replace it with a new faith.

From this day forward, the Holy Church of The Order of The Red Breast will be known as the Holy Church of The Order of El Chorizo Grande. I’ll explain the meaning of this later, but right now I have to rearrange my office to accommodate the new cappuccino machine I mentioned.

In the meantime, and if you are still interested in our mutually beneficial financial transaction, you will need to adorn your forehead with the Holy Symbol of El Chorizo Grande. For your convenience, I’ve attached a photograph of the first initiate to receive this holiest of holy marks.

Until next we speak, my future brother.

The Reverend Chuck U. Farley

CEO, Holy Church of The Order of El Chorizo Grande

History Repeats Itself

"It seems to be difficult for the individual to realize that there exists a division between one's spiritual and purely human needs, and that the satisfaction or fulfillment for each has to be found in different spheres. As a rule, we find the two aspects hopelessly confused in modern relationships, where one person is made the god-like judge over good and bad in the other person. In the long run, such symbiotic relationship becomes demoralizing to both parties, for it is just as unbearable to be God as it is to remain an utter slave." - Otto Rank

Despite our attempts to avoid the pitfalls encountered by our parents, history often has a strange fucking way of repeating itself. How else to explain the fact the my wife has chosen to leave me now, when I'm precisely the same age (38) my father was when my mother left him?

Things between us have not been going well for quite awhile now, but my wife's departure has taken place with a staggering quickness that will likely take some time to adjust to. As I write this, I'm struck by the silence. What formerly was a bustling home full of noisy canine energy has now become deathly quiet, with only the faint sound of Mojo (my dog's) breathing, to fill the air.

Without delving too deeply into the details, I will say that serious mistakes were made on both sides of this marital equation. Mistakes that, like the tooth aching the proverbial jawbone, were allowed to fester for far too long until they could no longer be ignored. But by that time the sum total of everything that had been rotting away had taken on a life and momentum all their own.

If anyone who reads this is having problems in their relationship that they are not confronting in the hopes that they will somehow magically fix themselves, I'm here to tell you right now that they won't. Whatever is keeping you from dealing with things, no matter how disturbing or unpleasant it may seem - if you value your relationship, deal with it, and do it soon.

You can't change reality by willing it to change, and trust me, things just don't fix themselves.

Fun w/419 Scammers Update

Click here for a rundown on my ongoing exchange with these "Nigerian" scam artists. I was beginning to suspect that these guys had finally figured out that they were being fucked with. But yesterday, I received the following message from my newfound penpals.

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Dear sir,

Do call me on this number Asap.

Tel; 234 8037251424

Bests,

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I've since replied to Mr. Chichi with the following narrative, with props to Francis Ford Coppola and Marlon Brando:

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Dear Mr. Chichi,

I regret to inform you that, since our last communication, the future of the Holy Church of The Order of The Red Breast has been thrown into chaos and disarray.

While on a missionary journey in the jungles of South America, the current leader of our church, the Honorable Pastor Thurd Ferguson III has been reported missing after his boat was found abandoned on the banks of the Amazon River.

A local Yanomami tribesman, known only as “Choko” reported that Pastor Ferguson began behaving strangely after ingesting a massive amount of a ritual hallucinogen through his nasal passages.

The last radio communication we received via his assistant, Sister Mary Elephant, was ominous and troubling. I’ve attached a transcript below so you can see with your own eyes just how very disturbing all this has become for us in the Order:

"I've seen horrors... horrors that you've seen. But you have no right to call me a murderer. You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that... but you have no right to judge me. It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror. Horror has a face... and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies. I remember when I was with Kathie Lee Gifford’s Army of Compassion. Seems a thousand centuries ago. We went into a camp to inoculate the children. We left the camp after we had inoculated the children for Polio, and this old man came running after us and he was crying. He couldn't see. We went back there and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile. A pile of little arms. And I remember... I... I... I cried. I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out. I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it. I never want to forget. And then I realized... like I was shot... like I was shot with a diamond... a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought: My God... the genius of that. The genius. The will to do that. Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they were stronger than we. Because they could stand that these were not monsters. These were men... trained cadres. These men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love... but they had the strength... the strength... to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men our troubles converting the natives here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral... and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to preach the Holy Gospel of the Red Breast without feeling... without passion... without judgment... without judgment. Because it's judgment that defeats us."

So, as you can see, the situation for the Order is quite dire and uncertain. All new initiates into the Order must be approved by Pastor Ferguson. The individual who is next in the line of succession, the Reverend Blynde Mellon Chitlin, recently suffered a lapse of faith and left the Order to pursue a new career in Alaska as an air conditioning salesman. As we await word on the fate of Pastor Ferguson, my fellow brothers and I are currently in the process of trying to discern who should be next in line to succeed Pastor Ferguson in the event he never returns from South America. Normally this would not be a problem, but our founder Sister Betsy Carrington encoded the process for choosing a successor in a maddeningly confusing blend of Masai, Gaelic, and a relatively obscure tongue known as Pigg Latin.

We have only just begun this process and already my brothers and I are deadlocked over the meaning of a particularly baffling passage. Half of us believe it says that the next in line should be selected on the basis of his shoe size, while the other half seem to believe it should be based on penis size. If the latter interpretation should prevail, then I can tell you right now that I will be contacting you in the very near future at the number you sent me.

In the meantime, I encourage you, and anyone else who is interested, to take the first step towards embracing our faith by adorning your body with the Holy Symbol of the Red Breast. Once that is accomplished, and once we choose a successor to Pastor Ferguson, then all we will need to do is contact you by phone and have you recite the Red Breast Pledge.

Whatever faith you currently embrace, I ask that you keep Pastor Ferguson in your prayers, and keep your fingers crossed for me to be chosen as the new head (pun intended) of our Order.

I will of course contact you the moment we hear more about the fate of Pastor Ferguson, or until these minimally endowed brothers of mine stop bickering and anoint me as the new leader of our Order.

Until then, peace and glad tidings to you, my future Brother!

The Reverend Chuck U. Farley

Financial Development Director (not for long)

Holy Church of The Order of The Red Breast.

We're Number 1!!!!!

It's official....Arizona now boasts the highest overall crime rate AND the highest dropout rate in the nation!!!

Further proof that this state truly belongs somewhere south of the Mason-Dixon line.

Despite these alarming statistics people from all across the country - especially those places where the sun rarely shines - are moving here in droves to spend their last miserable days on this earth gambling their retirement away and spending a ridiculous amount of time whacking little white balls across endless expanses of well-manicured grass.

Nominee Roberts Stricken With Situational Amnesia

If Supreme Court nominee/bipartisan gadfly/scrap of crypto-fascist conservative bumwipe John Roberts "can't remember" being a leading, card-carrying member of one of the most influential conservative groups in the nation, how the FUCK can he be trusted to recall appropriate bits of case law to base his decisions on?

Got Xenophobia?

With each passing day, it's becoming the official religion of places like my former home of Sierra Vista, AZ - a place so unbelievably fucking conservative it deserves to be relocated back east somewhere south of the Mason-Dixon line.

Read your fucking history, people. This land belonged to the Children of the Sun for thousands of fucking years before a Christian ever set foot here. After a momentary lapse brought on by disease and genocide, they are now in the process of taking it back.

This isn't a goddamned invasion, it's a reclamation.

Get used to it.

Cops: The Stoner Files

Q: You're a hardcore stoner and someone robs you of your stash and your plasma screen TV, who do you call?

A. Your main homie G-Dawg, who offers to recruit 2 or 3 other pipe-wielding brutes who will hunt the perpetrator down and go to work on him/her with a pair of pliers and a blowtorch.

B. Your dealer, because after all now you're out of smoke, have no TV, and are seriously bummed about the whole experience.

C. Your local police department, who you've heard has recently initiated a program to help potheads track down and recover their pilfered stash.

If you answered "C" - you're a complete idiot, but then again this did happen in Texas, where everything is bigger except for most people's brains.

Today's Playlist

SONG 1: HELMET: “MILQUETOAST”

SONG 2: DAVID BOWIE/TRENT REZNOR: “I’M AFRAID OF AMERICANS"

SONG 3: ALICE IN CHAINS: “WHAT THE HELL HAVE I”

SONG 4: A PERFECT CIRCLE: “ROSE”

SONG 5: MAD SEASON: “RIVER OF DECEIT”

SONG 6: PEARL JAM: “I BELIEVE IN MIRACLES (LIVE)”

SONG 7: THE SMASHING PUMPKINS: “MUZZLE”

This Is My Brain on Work

Any questions?

Sorry, But God Told Me to Let You Die

"I'm not saying [humanitarian migrant rescue group No More Deaths] are wrong. Their intent is beautiful. But you've got to use your head when you get the orders to do God's work."

-Southern Arizona (Arivaca) resident Jim S. Conklin, who apparently believes that "God" would rather his children sit idly by and watch their fellow brothers and sisters roast to death in the Arizona sun, rather than try to help them.

Well, shit Jim...have you ever stopped to think that if there really was a God, perhaps "he" shouldn't have engineered reality in a way that forces these poor people - many of whom are even more devout in their faith than the people who live in this country - to leave everyone and everything they've ever known and loved behind to face a brutal and painful death in the desert?