The Ministry of Minor Perfidy

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He knows where you live

Chance has no nuts

No longer the towel attendent in the Ministry Bunker and Catastratorium

Oh she totally has a machete. Seriously.

Like all Canadians, he has an insatiable lust for world conquest

Minister Emeritus

Windy City Mike
social democrat, ca. 1930 trade-unionist, and professor of alleged history

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Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Skinny Puppy Party Like it’s 1993

Skinny Puppy, last seen freaking out parents in the days of flannel and Teen Spirit, reunited a few years ago after an acrimonious breakup and have just released their second post-breakup album, The Greater Wrong of the Right. First, the good news: on the new record, reunited Skinny Puppy principals cEvin Kay and Nivek Ogre still make intricately produced, synth-heavy industrial spook music replete with giant soundscapes, processed vocals, and lyrics about alienation, decay, and global conspiracy. However, there’s bad news too: it’s lame.

More Perfidious Goodness...

The early 1990s were a heady time for heavy music. Literally dozens of worthwhile bands were making interesting albums. From the porno-cabaret of My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult to the relentless pounding of KMFDM and Front 242, not to mention the commercial crunch of Ministry and NIN, there was never a better time to be a goth. Back then, before NIN’s “Closer” got Top 40 airplay, before White Zombie rode Al Jourgenson’s and Nivek Ogre’s best ideas to platinum stardom, there was some cool music being made by guys who wore fake blood and festooned their cover art with H.R. Giegeresque tableaux. I spent countless hours in college listening to Skinny Puppy’s Too Dark Park (Nettwerk, 1990) and Last Rights (Nettwerk, 1991), two seriously creepy slices of psychosis. However, by 1993 the Pup were more concerned with drugs and side projects than with putting out good records, and they slipped completely off my radar.

When The Greater Wrong of the Right arrived in my mailbox, I was excited to see where the state of the art of industrial music now stands. Although I still pull out my industrial records from time to time (and the best of them have aged fairly well), I curious as to how Skinny Puppy had updated their sound. From the moment I looked at the cover art, however, I had misgivings. Worms, cadavers, meathooks, and a dude eating a millipede sandwich don’t exactly bring the creeps like they used to. Actually, that’s backwards. Worms, cadavers, meathooks, and a dude eating a millipede sandwich bring the creeps exactly like they used to, and that’s a little disappointing. I hoped that the Pup had learnt a few new tricks.

For better or worse, the music on The Greater Wrong of the Right lives up to the promise of the cover art. Sounding like a transmission direct from 1993, the group don’t as much reinvent as reinhabit their old sound. The risk they take in doing so is inviting comparison to their best material, not to mention the scores of groups they have influenced. The best part of their sound—the sweeping landscapes of synthesizer, loud guitar, and half-memorable hooks—has been pirated by everybody and their teenaged brother. Literally dozens of forgettable goth bands, not to mention popsters like Linkin Park and Marilyn Manson, grew up listening to the Pup. Many of them now sell millions of albums working the same territory, with perhaps a shot of teen angst taking the place of armageddon in the lyrical content. Consequently, The Greater Wrong of the Right doesn’t come off so much bad as completely generic. For a band like Skinny Puppy whose stock in trade is shock and horror, this is near disaster.

To be fair, it may well just be that I’ve grown completely out of my ability to think this kind of thing is cool, but The Greater Wrong Of The Right just isn’t all that interesting. The album certainly sounds nice, full of full-stereo full-spectrum mixes, and Ogre’s thin nasal vocals hold up just the same as they have ever done. Unfortunately, the songwriting hasn’t changed in fifteen years and the lyrics, which may or not have sounded cool in 1991, now come across as deeply silly (“All of us exist in touch of deadly warming global/ and trust we must distrust the owners of the new world order”).

Maybe it’s that I’m older now and far less prone to thinking vampires are cool. Maybe it’s that Ogre and Kay are older now, stuck in the past and missing both the drugs and the production genius of Dave Ogilvie. Either way, when Ogre sings on “Ghostman,” “Attached in awe/ what a whiplash hatefilled culture of/ viruses/ born raised and infected with violent thought/ to set it off/ defend the wrong/incite the thing/to bring it down/to bring it down/to bring it down” all I can do is roll my eyes, skip ahead to the part where the guitars get real loud, and head down to the basement to see if I can find my cassette of Too Dark Park.

http://www.spv.de http://www.skinnypuppy.com

This post also appears at blogcritics.org. Go read blogcritics.org. It is your duty.

Too Goddamn Much Perfidy...

Posted by Johno on 01/11/05 at 04:01 PM
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Begging to Differ a little more

Begging to Differ was among the first to recognize our genius and link us. Their long and faithful support (through several cast changes) has been one of the nicest things about running a blog. We are often remiss in linking the fine writers over at BTD, but this occasion deserves recognition.

BTD has undergone a radical site redesign. Well, it’s still a webpage; but the look is much different, and in this reader’s opinion, a tremendous improvement. (Not that the old look was bad, mind you.) In addition, and as an added bonus, they went and added a forum. Now you can go over and whine and complain not just about their posts, but about whatever flits through your silly head.

So go over and talk to Steve and Greg and the gang, and fill up their forum with all the pent up blather you have been unable to release since our comments are turned off. But don’t stay too long, because the Perfidy redesign and upgrade is well underway, and will be operational by week’s end.

Posted by Buckethead on 01/11/05 at 07:31 AM
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Just a bunch of g-d d-mn peckerheads

A friend of my wife’s, an older woman who has figured out where she belongs and intends to stay there forever, has picked herself a really nice place to stay. She lives alone in a 200 year old house on the fringes of a salt marsh just up the coast from us in the old shipbuilding town of Essex, Massachusetts. One of the great attractions of living on the marsh is the abundance of wildlife she finds passing through her lawn on any given day. Newts, bullfrogs, turtles, rabbits, deer and the occasional coyote all make their appearances. But the strangest thing happens around Labor Day. Right around that time, the berries on the trees around her house (don’t ask me what the trees are) ripen on the branch and begin to ferment.

Soon, the woodpeckers come. Pileated woodpeckers, to be exact. Lots of them; dozens. Rather more than are typically seen together in northern coastal Massachusetts.

Every year around Labor Day, when the berries get so ripe on the trees that they begin to ferment, dozens of pileated woodpeckers come to her house to have themselves a party. They perch on the trees, eat the berries, and get drunk on the juice. Dozens of woodpeckers come to her house and get drunk on the juice of berries, and then they hang upside down from the branches of the trees and call to each other all through the night.

True story.

Posted by Johno on 01/11/05 at 01:17 AM
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Monday, January 10, 2005

Who will keep order in Iraq?

Well, police of course!

Secret police!

Is it just me, or does reviving in Iraq the “Elite Death Squad” strategem (last seen ruining the credibility of the US and several sovereign governments in Latin America) seem like the king of all bad ideas?

I mean, let’s start with the fact that these squads will be hitmen, trained and initially financed by the US military to whack malcontents, rabble-rousers, and yes, hopefully some real actual terrorists and their kingpins. (Don’t you love that word, kingpin?) Then, consider that the use of Elite Whacking Squadrons amounts to an admission (no!) that certain decisions regarding the war in Iraq, how to fight it, and how it’s going might possibly not have turned out so well as some cheery folks might have been saying (no!!). So now, they’re calling in the Whacking Squadrons.

So right there we’ve got 1) the US military helping to “whack” guys who may or may not be shady, who may or may not be threats (who cares!?) and 2) the impression that said Elite Iraqi Whacking Squadrons are cat’s paws of the US military. Tell me: how is that a good idea?

The United States and Iraq need to win against the ‘insurgency.’ But not this way. Not this way.

Kriston at Begging To Differ says it better and at greater length.

[wik] McQ of QandO agrees as well, and also brings up the Vietnam-era “Project Phoenix” as an example of how easily such projects can go very, very wrong.

Posted by Johno on 01/10/05 at 06:23 PM
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Circularity

Slacktivist looks at the social security trust fund one way. I look at it another.

Contributed to a trust fund? Did you really? Hmm. I guess you can look at it that way, and you can also look at it this way:

You’re Abe, and you have a son, Ben. You set up two accounts, one for “regular stuff”, and one for “retirement”. You’re worried about the retirement account, so you put extra money in it. But your regular bills are pretty high, so you “loan” the extra cash from the retirement fund to the regular fund, and then you go ahead and spend it anyway. Then you go back to Ben and let him know that he “owes you” the extra cash you put in the retirement fund.

So how much did you really save with that little sleight of hand?

As a not-quite-young-anymore person, I’ve been in the workforce 20 years, and I’ve paid plenty of taxes, both regular and social security.

This generation of workers (along with the previous) have _voted_ themselves benefits far in excess of what they’ve produced. I agree on the nature of the paper—the government better damn well pay it back, or financial systems all over the world are going to feel the shockwave.

But don’t paper it over with an “I paid into this” attitude. You didn’t. You didn’t pay for the government you got over the last 20 years, you won’t pay for what you’re getting over the next 10, and as a whole, the citizens of this country have simply decided that screwing over the next generation is the very most important thing to them.

So what to do? Wage-indexed benefits have got to go. You can’t attempt to sustain a “20% of average wage” standard for benefits in the face of a 3-to-1 worker-retiree ratio. Convert social security into a truly pay-as-you-go system, on a year-by-year basis. Stop the theft of the surplus by the general fund. Means-test benefits; it’s social security _insurance_, not “my check is in the mail”. Begin computation of cost-benefit ratios for drugs and employ a harsh test—the drug is not on an “approved list” unless spending those same drug dollars on less high-tech medicine can’t save more lives. Weight these tests towards children and the young. They’re paying the bills.

The greatest generation was followed by the greediest generation whose myopic gaze falls upon the desert of its works—castles made of sand, a loving gift to their progeny…

Posted by Ross on 01/10/05 at 05:43 PM
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Sunday, January 09, 2005

The League of Extraordinarily Creepy Gentlemen

It occurred to me the other day that there are a few actors who have a reputation for glorious creepiness on the silver screen. What would happen if someone came up with a vehicle to combine their exquisite creepiness into one divine orgy of creep?

I’m thinking Christopher Walken, John Malkovich, and Willem Dafoe as the lead creepsters, with Crispin Glover as their loyal journeyman creep. Michael Madsen could be an applying for a position on the team, and Jon Lovitz could provide the comic relief. Angelina Jolie and Glenn Close could be the distaff creeps.

Plot wouldn’t matter all that much. Just let them improvise. The end result would leave you feeling dirty and greasy for months after seeing the film.

Posted by Buckethead on 01/09/05 at 02:59 PM
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Friday, January 07, 2005

Profiles in Really Asking For It

I have (tentatively, with reservations), enabled comments on my three most recent posts (counting this one), after deleting the auto-spammed entry from the one bot that seems to have figured out the Ministry post-numbering scheme in advance.

Have at it.

[wik] Well… that didn’t work. Never mind!

Posted by Johno on 01/07/05 at 06:31 PM
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I Didn’t Know Words Could Kill

While reading an otherwise provocative and lively discussion by a group of film critics (2004: The Year in Movies) which manages to cover all the ground between loving and hating Dogville, Fahrenheit 9/11 and The Passion of The Christ and dismissing all three as forgettable failed experiments, I came across the following phrase, written by Scott Foundas of the L.A. Weekly:

As early as Sundance in January, there was Jehane Noujaim’s Control Room, an extraordinary survey of the current propaganda wars (ultimately, the ones that really matter)...

It is unfortunate that Foundas chose the word “ultimate” in arguing that wars of words and ideas matter in the end more than wars of killing. He is using it in a poetic sense to lend heft to his assertion that propaganda “really matter[s].” Unfortunately for him, “ultimate” means the last, the end, the thing which cannot be overcome.

I have argued in this forum repeatedly that the US armed forces can do no greater good for themselves, the USA, and (he said, from his seat of white male imperial privelige,) the world than to work as hard as possible on winning the ‘hearts and minds’ battles in the wars they are fighting. The “propaganda wars” Foundas refers to include these and more. The ‘hearts and minds’ efforts are incredibly important, because after the killing winds down and nations get back to doing what it is nations do when they are not busy tearing themselves into pieces, it would be really nice if we were not hated as a matter of policy as the Great Satan Above All Satans. In the short run winning the hearts and minds battle-- or at least trying to do better on that front than breaking even-- can only help. In the long run it can ensure that the sun does not soon set on the American Century (1919-?).

But as truly important as they are, in war, hearts and minds are not the “ultimate” thing in a war.

Ultimately, “propaganda” only matters when someone is left alive to see it.

Posted by Johno on 01/07/05 at 06:05 PM
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Meaty, Beaty, Big and Bouncy

Mocean Worker: Enter The MoWo (2004: Hyena Records)

Once upon a time, I went to hear a DJ called Mocean Worker (rhymes with “ocean”) spin at one of the many tiny drink-and-DJ clubs that dot the lower Manhattan landscape. I had already developed a powerful aversion to club music, since in New York you can’t buy a shirt, eat a meal, or even walk down the sidewalk without the insistent BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM of this season’s hot sub-sub-subvariety invading your space. Needless to say, I was present that night out of obligation (I worked for his label at the time (and he’s a great guy)), not because I was eager to drop $7 a drink to hear yet another so-called DJ spinning yet another set of big-beat bore.

The evening started predictably enough, with Mocean Worker interlacing house music of the not-offensive variety with his own Moog-thickened creations. Then things got weird. Some very interesting non-dance tracks poked through the haze of 808 beats, and I’m quite certain the theme from “Banana Splits” got worked in somehow. The intrusions left some people fairly nonplussed, since it is in fact rather jarring to jump directly from Dzihan and Kamien to, say, “The Dukes of Hazzard,” but for my part I left convinced this Mocean Worker guy was a genius, though perhaps a genius handcuffed by the conventions of the dance genre.

Mocean Worker is Adam Dorn, the son of veteran producer Joel Dorn who produced Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me Softly” as well as innumerable worthy albums for Atlantic and others, notably The Allman Brothers, David “Fathead” Newman, Dr. John, Charles Mingus, Bette Midler, and Lou Rawls. Adam, himself a producer and jazz bassist was raised in the studio, soaking up the music being made around him and-- it would seem-- taking it all right in.

Dorn is in a uniquely lucky position in a couple respects. He is a graduate of Boston’s Berklee College of Music, an institution that is well known for producing superhuman musicians who can play anything at the drop of a hat. Moreover, he and his father ran the now-defunct labels 32 Jazz and Label M, which were dedicated to reissuing the best lost classics that Joel Dorn produced over the years, mostly jazz- and funk-inflected albums that could be licensed for a song from the original labels. (If you ever find any releases from these labels in used bins-- do not pass them up.) This excellent and diverse catalog under family control gives Dorn the rare ability to use a vast number of samples for very little money. It also doesn’t hurt that his current label, Hyena, is also a Joel Dorn project.

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Dorn’s first two albums as Mocean Worker, 1998’s Home Movies From The Brain Forest (Conscience) and 1999’s Mixed Emotional Features (Palm Pictures) have been unfairly dubbed drum-and-bass. Though dark and complex, even then his meticulously produced tracks and use of jazz samples suggested greater depths to his ambitions-- what drum-and-bass producer would build a track solely out of Ellington, Strayhorn and Basie samples, as Dorn did on Mixed Emotional Features’ “Counts, Dukes, and Strays? Whatever else you might say about them, Dorn’s first two albums pointed to a promising career as a maker of interesting and intelligent dance albums.

Which is what made his third album, 2000’s Aural and Hearty, (Palm Pictures) so puzzling. Abandoning the subtlety he had previously displayed, Dorn let his goofy side run wild on big, obvious house-inflected sounds. Although a couple tracks stood out, the album was mostly a series of unsuccessful genre experiments. My best guess at the time was that Dorn was chafing at the limitations of dance and was trying to-- as the opening bit on Aural and Hearty had it-- “Lighten Up, Francis.” A little while later, when I heard Dorn spin in that New York bar, it became clear that that Dorn not only found orthodox dance music limiting, but boring as well.

It has taken four records for Mocean Worker to figure out how to make Mocean Worker, that slap-happy goodtime asshole who drops “The Banana Splits” in the middle of an acid-house set, play nice with Mocean Worker, devotee of profoundly beautiful, achingly soulful electronic dance music.

On the new Enter the MoWo (2004, Hyena) everything finally comes together. This time Dorn moves smoothly from strength to strength, hopping genres from hot jazz to ambient with total assurance. MoWo features wall to wall funky beats, chewy basslines (sampled and otherwise), dense, aurally complete productions, and guest performances from an all-star cast including Bill Frisell, Donald Byrd, David “Fathead” Newman, and Sex Mob members Briggan Krauss and Steve Bernstein. In equal measures goofy, funky, deep, and beautiful, this is the first truly complete Mocean Worker album.

It has been a while since I have heard such a fun record. Music geeks like me can get off on tracks like “Shamma Lamma Ding Dong,” where Dorn pits a sampled flute performance from the late Rahsaan Roland Kirk against the very alive flute of Franck Gauthier of the French group Rinôçérôse. But non-jazz heads who don’t (or don’t care to) get the joke, can simply enjoy the infectious beat, laid back feel, and punchy interplay between flautists. This kind of lighthearted invention is all over the record. “Right Now” marries a Hot Club of Paris style swing trumpet lead to a percolating electric piano groove. On a few cuts, like the spooky “Only The Shadow Knows” and “Move,” Dorn updates the spy-music genre with sly samples and chewy basslines. The energetic workouts are balanced by beautiful atmospheric pieces, notably Shivaree singer Ambrosia Parsley’s beautiful vocals on the stark “I’ll Take the Woods,” and “Blackbird,” which updates a Nina Simone vocal outtake from 1986 with muted electronic accompaniments.

Not everything works perfectly. In particular, two of the least structured tracks-- “Salted Fatback” featuring a wasted and perfunctory performance by guitar legend Bill Frisell, and the chill-out room cut “Float”—go on for several minutes too long. But, at a lean twelve tracks in 49 minutes, any weak spots are past before you can get tired of them hanging around.

Dance music is a ghetto and jazz is on perpetual life support. Nevertheless, Enter The Mowo is a meaty, beaty, big and bouncy reinvention of the two, without any of the precious fustiness of the long-dead acid jazz movement or the forced cheer of Guru’s Jazzamatazz records. Nice work, Adam. But how you gonna top yourself next time?

http://www.moceanworker.com
http://www.hyenarecords.com

For a good idea of where Dorn is coming from at the moment with this Mocean Worker thing, I urge you to check out the affable, goofy video to “Chick A Boom Boom Boom” see if you can figure out what’s up with the gorilla suit.

Also posted to blogcritics.org. Visit blogcritics for all your media and news punditry needs.

[wik] GeekLethal writes via email,

J, This no comments business is irritating, if necessary. Just read your review of Mocean Worker. Never heard of him. Very helpful for you to include a glimpse at his CV. And anything with nods to both Bill Frisell (who I am just beginning to explore) and Roland Kirk (who I will never presume to understand) on the same record must be worthwhile.

Saw Bill Frisell on a show one morning, I believe he was solo and with a trio. Anyway, they spoke to him at some length. The guy would ask fairlyspecific and intelligent questions, and Bill would respond to all of them in a rolling semi-whisper something like this:

“Well, it’s really about....communication is what it’s about...because… sometimes it’s about...[inaudible]...then that’s why the trio [inaudible]...but it’s always difficult...to reach everybody...sometimes I just have to communicate with music because I can’t with words.”

Hey, no shit? Well, good for the rest of us I say, Bill.

Too Goddamn Much Perfidy...

Posted by Johno on 01/07/05 at 03:46 PM
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Thursday, January 06, 2005

Libelling Editor Reognized for Excellence

Late last spring, Boston Globe editor Martin Baron ran a page 1 pic that purported to show American soldiers caught in the act of raping Iraqi girls. It pissed off alot of people, not the least of whom were citizens confused about why such a graphic photo was in the paper at all, let alone the front page. It was also cause for kookier elements of the state government to parade around with the pics, decrying the acts, the American military, yanqui imperialists, whitey, and The Man.

Only problem was that the pics were fake. Not only were they not pictures of a heinous act, the men in question were not soldiers. It was all staged by...ahem...models, in costumes, and posted on a porn site for kinkos who dig rape scenes.

The story of the real source of the pics came from the semi-strange World Net Daily, and after a brief round of blaming the messenger, the Globe sort of apologised for printing graphic pics but not for running fake ones, or for smearing American soldiery.

In recognition of this deed, and characteristic of what befalls such men in this part of the world, Baron is being rewarded. He’s been named George Beveridge Editor of the Year by the National Press Foundation. Among the criteria for the award is imagination. He certainly demonstrated his imagination with that little photo caper: at first, by imagining he had the scoop of the year; and later for his fantastic powers of denial, suggesting a robust imagination indeed.

Posted by on 01/06/05 at 02:29 PM
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Tuesday, January 04, 2005

Profiles in Forbearance

As all the world should by now know, I am a huge Cleveland Browns fan. Since I live in New England I typically get to view with my own peepers approximately 1.035 Browns games per year, factoring in occasional highlights on ESPN. Consequently, when I was home in Ohia for the holidays, I took the opportunity to view the Miami-Cleveland matchup slated for the day after Christmas, although neither team is, erm… any good.

Wow. What a stinker.

The game was so bad that by the end of the 3rd quarter with the score tied 7-7, the Cleveland home announcers were wishing aloud for someone to please score now, to end the misery before overtime was necessary. Fumbles, missed calls, stumbling, and penalty after penalty after stupid-ass penalty combined to make the Browns and Dolphins-- all highly trained professionals, all well paid to play their best at all times-- look as ragged and lost as a division III-C junior varsity high school football game, say the Garrettsville, OH (pop. 2200) G-Men versus the Mogadore, OH (pop 3800) Wildcats. Passes clanged to the ground uncaught. Running plays misfired. Offensive and defensive lines tangled into an unruly mess devoid of plan, strategy, or sense. The middle part of the field became muddy; you could have put a putting green inside the 20-yard lines.

I only mention all this because this stinker of a game resulted in a “what-what-WHAT?!?” play that I will forever treasure as the greatest display of bad football I have ever witnessed. It happened with about 10 minutes to go in the third quarter, and went a little something like this:

1-10-CLV 40 (10:12) 12-L.McCown pass intended for 86-D.Northcutt INTERCEPTED by 20-A.Freeman at MIA 20. 20-A.Freeman to MIA 21 for 1 yard. FUMBLES, recovered by MIA-23-P.Surtain at MIA 18. 23-P.Surtain to MIA 26 for 8 yards. Lateral to 29-S.Madison to MIA 30 for 4 yards. FUMBLES, RECOVERED by CLV-67-M.Fowler at MIA 34. 67-M.Fowler to MIA 34 for no gain (20-A.Freeman).

That’s a pass thrown by Cleveland rookie QB Luke McCown (who?!?) intercepted by Miami, then fumbled, then recovered by Miami, then a crazy-ass lateral pass just before tackle, followed by another Miami fumble, recovered by Cleveland’s center-- not a running back, not a receiver, for a fricking Cleveland first down.

This post brought to you by Howard, Howard, Howard, and Fine.

Posted by Johno on 01/04/05 at 05:01 PM
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Monday, January 03, 2005

Now the queers are using Jesus!

A California Catholic school has angered some students’ parents by choosing to accept for enrollment two boys who are the adopted sons of a gay couple. The angry parents “demanded that St. John the Baptist School in Costa Mesa accept only families that pledge to abide by Catholic teachings,” and vet applicants accordingly. The school’s leaders point out that if that were done to the desired extent, “then children whose parents divorced, used birth control or married outside the church would also have to be banned.”

The angry parents, evidently forgetting that as Catholics they don’t have a whole lot of lay authority, intend to appeal their case all the way to the Pope, under the thesis that the ancient and inscrutable Vatican heirarchy operates just like an episode of “Law and Order.”

These gay men, as the argument goes, are doing a horrible horrible thing in wanting to give their children a Catholic education and to raise them in the Catholic tradition. After all, what gay person would ever love God? Sez one angry parent, “the boys are being used as pawns by these men to further their agenda.” Guh? While I can understand the outrage to a certain degree, since the Catholic church stands foursquare against homosexuality, I cannot quite get my head around the idea that Catholics would turn away the children of homosexuals. I thought only one sin got passed down through generations.

[wik] Edited 1/4/04 for moral and grammatical clarity.

Posted by Johno on 01/03/05 at 05:16 PM
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Carnival

As in a parting with the flesh. Strip away the Christian/assumption connotations and one is left with the impetus for the single most popular New Year’s resolution: leaving about five pounds behind so we can fit into our good pants again. With that most Amurrican of obsessions in mind, I propose a new definition for “carnival.”

Carnival- USA colloq., v(i): American for “gee, I really need to get rid of this gut.”

Feh. Love your fat, I say! Revel in it! Treasure your five extra pounds of winter fat as a glutinous reward for untrammeled gluttony, your birthright as a member of the class that can afford too eat too much. You belong to the select few, that minute fraction of humanity who are at risk of dying from having too much to eat. Take a minute, look at your new girth, and fricking love it.

Then go check out the new Carnival of the Recipes for some quick and easy ways to further enhance your lardass endowment.

Did you eat your sauerkraut on New Year’s Day (or your black-eyed peas, if that’s your bag)? Why do foods that make you fart also bring good luck? If that’s really the case, I should by rights be the luckiest man alive. (Well… now that I think about it, I am. I love you, honey.)

Posted by Johno on 01/03/05 at 03:31 PM
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