Monthly Archives: April 2010

Ask The Ghetto Shaman

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Ask The Ghetto Shaman

Dear Ghetto Shaman,

I am a shaman.  I have lived for many months with the Warao of Eastern Venezuela.  I have consumed wild tobacco, nicotiana rustica, and have had hallucinations of the origins of DNA itself! I have also spoken to the jaguar.  You do a disservice to our ilk.

Tye

Tuba City, AZ

Dear Tye,

Yeah, well I’ve eaten cigarettes and driven around hallucinating about TNA. And I didn’t have to go all the way to Venezuela to talk to my car, bitch.

The Ghetto Shaman
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Serious Solutions Sought for Sesame Street’s Social Slide

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L. Wolfe

My two toddlers were watching Sesame Street the other day.  I’m just happy when they stop playing Resident Evil. So I decided to sit down and watch one of my favorite childhood shows with them.  First off, I am first generation Sesame Street watcher, so I figured it would be some good family time.  Besides, I always try to put on a good facade when the social workers are “visiting.”

Remember, Prairie Dawn?  Not the eighties movie about some Ruskie invasion, the  Sesame Street character (I sort of had a crush on her when I was a kid), Grover, Bert & Ernie (their unique lifestyle never crossed my mind as a child), Herry Monster, Kermit, and best of all, Cookie Monster.  Has there ever been a kid who didn’t like Cookie Monster?  If so, that’s a diagnosable Axis II personality disorder in my book.  Every kid wanted to eat cookies like Cookie Monster did but, alas, most of us had supervision.

While watching Sesame Street with my two young daughters, I enjoyed the nostalgia of it all…that lasted about twelve seconds.  My viewing experience was dashed with one Cookie Monster segment.  Cookie Monster wasn’t eating cookies.  No skit where Prairie tries to keep Cookie from eating her letter C (don’t go there. This isn’t the Ghetto Shaman’s column).  No Cookie Monster semi-Socratic justifications that invariably lead to a cookie feeding frenzy, no cookie crumbs flying everywhere.  Instead, he was promoting carrots. 

CARROTS…!  Are you freaking kidding me?  Is he Bugs frigging Bunny? I was ready to bitch slap Michelle Obama right then and there. So I asked my daughters about this, and they said, “Don’t bitch slap the first lady, daddy.  She has a point.” 

So Cookie Monster only eats cookies twice a week, the other days he eats “healthy” food.   Excuse me?  Did I miss something here?  Isn’t his name COOKIE MONSTER?  Not Carrot Monster, not Celery Monster, not Cabbage Monster, not Corn Monster, or Henson forbid, Carrot Top…He’s the Cookie Monster!  Well, he used to be Cookie Monster.  Now he’s not half the Monster he used to be—maybe 2/5 or perhaps even 3/7 if you count re-reruns.  Although, maybe cookies are a gateway snack to harder confectionary treats…

Do the Sesame Street producers really believe that kids eat too many sweets and get fat and lazy because of Cookie Monster’s influence?  Really?  So I suppose his unique mastery of Monster slang butchering the English language doesn’t impact them at all?  I mean, if they are eating poorly because of Cookie Monster, wouldn’t it be fair to say their language skills are being impaired by him?  Seems we should clean up his language skills too.  Even as Alistair Cookie, his language skills need some work.  Elmo probably has a similar impact, as he talks about himself in third person consistently.  Of course, Elmo suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder, or third person disorder (PC note: DID, also known as multiple personality disorder, is a serious mental disorder that impacts 6-10% of the population).  In fact, all of those characters probably need to be cleaned up a bit in order to improve society.  Yeah, that’s the ticket.  Let’s save our youth and treat our Sesame Street characters.   The Sesame Street producers should rethink the entire cast and do their part in reducing many issues in society.  Here are some of my ideas:

  • Oscar needs to take a friggin’ bath, the dude is disgusting. He also needs to stop contradicting himself all the time.  Honestly, the guy is a Grouch, he is supposed to like being miserable.  It seems, though, that anytime someone does something nice for him, he absolutely hates that he hates it.  Shouldn’t he love that he hates it?  You’d think he’d want people being nice to him all the time so he could love to hate it.  Then of course he would hate that he loves to hate it, and so on.  He sounds like a fraud!

    (Treatment: life skills group and anger management classes.)
  • Big Bird…fess up.  We know you really love to sneak out at night to fly over NYC and crap on things. Just admit it.  Get honest.  It’s all his pent up anger from the death of Mr. Hooper.

    (Treatment: grief counseling and psychotherapy to get over his anal stage).
  • Bert and Ernie just need to come out of the closet and stem this homophobia tide.

    (Treatment: rent Priscilla Queen of the Desert.)
  • Prairie Dawn really did want to be a porn star.  She had a tough childhood and it wasn’t her fault. And if she gets involved with the Governor of NY, it’s OK, she can still make a living from her appearances on Muppets Gone Wild.

    (Treatment: self-esteem building and Muppet empowerment classes.)
  • It’s OK if Elmo needs to go see the Sesame Street therapist.  Millions of Americans do it, and we shouldn’t put a stigma on it.  He’s not fooling anyone anyway, with his DID and his own show called “Elmo’s World”, I mean honestly.  Clearly the dude needs help.


    (Treatment: one session with a wood chipper or similar APA approved device.)
  • We all know that Snuffleupagus really is Big Bird’s imaginary friend, and that nobody else on Sesame Street can see him.  Just be honest with Big Bird so he can get some help.  He can even tag along with Elmo when he goes to the Sesame Street psych unit.

    (Treatment: Zyprexa, Zyprexa, Zyprexa.)
  • We can all admit that Grover can’t hold a steady job.  Send him to some job counseling and give him a nice suit.  Just show they can become productive citizens.

    (Treatment: vocational rehabilitation.)
  • Count von Count is a vampire and he drinks blood, face it.  And yes, PETA, that means some animals have to die.  It’s OK though, because maybe he drinks the blood drained from dead cattle in Chicago slaughterhouses.  See? It’s all good.

    (Treatment: cognitive behavioral therapy to treat his out of control OCD and some jail time for cruelty to animals.)
  • It’s obvious to me that Herry Monster has a tumor impacting his Pituitary Gland.  Giantism is a debilitating condition, and it’s preventable.

    (Treatment: surgery and a Hollywood Muppet makeover session.)
  • Gordon and Bob smoke dope, go to Mike Weir concerts, and support various hemp legalization lobbies. They have medical conditions.  Really.

    (Treatment: enough medical marijuana to stone the entire eastern seaboard.)

Today’s feature article was brought to you by “what the H!”  And the “I stepped in number 2.”
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Vatican to Use Harry Potter’s ‘Sorting Hat’ to Pick Next Pope

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Vatican to Use Harry Potter’s ‘Sorting Hat’ to Pick Next Pope

Rome, IT (or thereabouts)—Vatican officials, along with someone known only as the Albino Priest, have decided to “switch it up” for their next pope picking extravaganza.

When asked if the decision to use the ‘Sorting Hat’ from the wildly popular Harry Potter series might be deemed “way too f-ing Pagan” by some of the parishioners, the Vatican had this to say, “The gig is up, the cat is out of the bag, the fat lady is singing, and the altar boys are pressing charges. In no way will people continue to buy the whole ‘divinely picked thing’ at this point. Besides, it’s not like we haven’t absorbed some Pagan stuff before.”

The Vatican believes that “whatever they choose to pick the next Pope couldn’t be worse.”

The Albino Priest had this to say, “We hope to just incorporate parts of the Potter series into our faith. The Gospel of Dumbledore is due to release in June, and you can’t tell me we won’t gain some popularity with the young’ins with our Christ Church of Wizardry.”

As part of the deal, R.K. Rowling will be awarded an entire wing of the Vatican for weekly treasure baths.

“Rumors to divide the Catholic Church into congregations like Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, or Hufflepuff are just that, rumors,” said the Albino Priest. “Now if we could only get the sorting hat to stop picking Cardinal Snape.”

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Dumb and Hummer

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The Crank

Here is a recent quote from Penn Jillette, the Vegas magician-slash-entertainer, on the demise of Hummer as a brand, “If any part of the Hummer going belly-up are those government rules we’re putting in on miles per gallon, or us taking over of GM, then I’m not just sad, I’m also angry. Lack of freedom can be measured directly by lack of stupid. Freedom means freedom to be stupid. …You don’t need any freedom to go with majority opinion. … We need to protect other people’s stupid to save freedom for all of us.”

I want to zero in on one sentence in particular: we need to protect other people’s stupid to save freedom for all of us. Never truer words were spoken. In this one little sentence, we find the entire foundation of our freedoms—the inalienable right to be a dork (which has, incidentally, influenced the Ghetto Shaman’s next book, The Tao of Stupid). It’s easy for a world full of sane, levelheaded intelligent people to all get along, just look at Star Trek, or the Senate :). But add to the mix a people whose main objective in life is to be on MTV as someone throws bowling balls at his privates.  Only then do you begin to see how, if we can’t be free to do that, then we are not truly free.

Just like Penn is free to spend a fortune on a home that looks like a women’s prison, (clearly a sex fantasy of his) we all benefit from his right to do so. That doesn’t make any of it any less friggin scary, just free. Hummers, Pintos, Gremlins, Yugos with ‘dubs’—the “dorky” list goes on. Even the great philosopher Abnormal Albert Yankovic wrote of the benefits of stupid in a wonderful soliloquy called Dare to Be Stupid and also in perhaps his most moving piece: Pretty Fly for a White Guy.

We are not truly free if you never see a pick-up with a fake atom bomb on a gun rack in the rear window (or a set of fake testicles hanging from the trailer-hitch). Just as we can never be truly free if we don’t see an English professor driving a Prius with his bearded smile thinking on some misguided level he’s doing the right thing (even though the power from his local power plant comes from burning coal). Stupidity, being fully accepted as a right, may just be the answer we are all looking for. It seems lately that if your ideas “stray” from the mainstream in either direction, you are completely unacceptable to the other side. For truly “liberal” thinkers this is an oxymoron, for the very word is supposed to mean “open to new ideas.” For the far, far right, just moron (sans oxy).

Does watching Xena reruns on the lesbian channel in the middle of the night with the sound off make me unacceptable? I think not…well, maybe a little. Or does Mikko have the right to blog what he is actually thinking in a public forum?  (well, there are boundaries to the rights of stupid and I applaud Zano’s deep exploration of them).

While we must protect our stupid, that doesn’t necessarily mean we should elect and pay them for their stupid, we must: just fight for their right to be stupid. While I will fight for Nancy Pelosi’s right to appear as a Michael Jackson (after the surgery) impersonator, I don’t want her in a position of any importance. While I adamantly insist on the right for Sarah Palin to appear in my nightly forays into the cerebral dark side, I also may not want her in any kind of important position…well, er…nevermind (which reminds me, hey Mikko, can I have a hard copy of the Lynn Cheney pic where she’s in the Nazi getup? I’m going to visit Penn’s prison and we’re making it a theme weekend. Thanks).

With this in mind, I have created the next Amendment to the Constitution: The right of the people to be secure in their own personal stupid, shall not be infringed upon.

Our other problem with stupidity is fear. We fear stupid. We all have a tendency to fear what we don’t understand. When, in reality, we are all just stupid in different directions. Maybe, since stupid is in such ample supply, we should all become more familiar with it. Being a member of my extended family has brought me as close to it as I will ever want to be, but some of you from more normal environs may want to take advantage of my own personal stupidity farm by paying a visit. It might ease you into this whole stupid thing.  Oh, but on your visit to the floor of hell, otherwise known as Phoenix, remember this handy trick: did you ever wish you could pee your pants anywhere in front of anybody and get away with it? Well, here in the Valley of the Sun, it will evaporate before it reaches the outer layer of your clothing.  I have invented a word for this, my own personal singlet if you will—the verb to pissappear [piss-uh-peer].

Or would you rather breathe air so thin that you walk around knowing what it’s like to be asphyxiated? In that case, a trip up the mountain to Mikko’s would be in order. I sometimes think the lack of oxygen up there explains his views.

Obama is as Obama does.

The (I am pissing as we speak) Crank
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Jesus to be Brought Before Grand Jury in Church Abuse Case

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Jesus to be Brought Before Grand Jury in Church Abuse Case

Vatican City, um, Vatican City – According to Discord sources, Jesus Christ, alias “Dave,” was recently issued a subpoena in the ongoing Catholic Church child molestation investigation. As the “Christ” figure in the “Vicar of Christ” moniker, he is being painted as the kingpin of an organized child molestation community.

“’Suffer the little children cum unto me [Luke 18:16]’? I think that says it all,” stated Hymie Fez, Chief Lawsuit Filer. “On top of that, he’s the guy that appointed that Pope…um…accomplice.”

At a minimum, the Savior is in grave danger of losing his position as hiring manager.

The Discord’s own Cokie McGrath, did some seedy investigation and turned up some publicly known evidence. Apparently Jesus and his alleged father were behind a series of nine, mass ride-through slashings beginning in 1095.

“We also have him tied to some 278,000 counts of the sale of indulgences,” said Fez. “Imagine a guy in his position being stupid enough to get into petty number-running.”

The FBI, in conjunction with Interpol, are setting up a series of sting operations in order to capture this fiend. Every month there is a landslide of reports of pictures of the culprit in places like potato chips, cheese sandwiches, and insane asylums, but the Lord is proving to be evasive. This has led to the formation of vigil-ente patrols.

“We get leads from the media,” remarked  Wil Gettum, leader of the vigil-ente organization. “We hear that he’ll be in town every now and then. Cosmic alignments, comet-passings, and big-shit droppings all bring in a lot of reports. But he has yet to show himself.”

Until concrete evidence comes to light, the vigil-ente community will be spending a lot of time in church.
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Ask The Ghetto Shaman

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Ask The Ghetto Shaman

Dear Ghetto Shaman,

What is your power animal? Just curious.

Devin P.

Richmond, VA

Dear Devin,

The horse is my power animal. Colt 45 forties to be more specific.

The Ghetto Shaman
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North Pole Packs Up, Moves to the Far East: Discord Discovers Cause!

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L. Wolfe

The Earth’s North Magnetic Pole has been guiding navigation for well over a thousand years. Some of the earliest known maps depicting the approximate location of the Earth’s northern pole placed it just off modern day Murmansk. Not to be confused with singer/actress Ethel Mermansk. The exact location of the pole was first discovered by James Clark Ross in 1831 at Cape Adelaide on the Boothia Peninsula in Northern Canada (while playing hockey naked).

Part of the Carta Marina of 1539 by Olaus Magnus, depicting the location of magnetic north vaguely conceived as "Insula Magnetu[m]" (Latin for "Island of Magnets") off modern day Murmansk. The man holding the rune staffs is the Norse hero Starkad.
Part of the Carta Marina of 1539 by Olaus Magnus, depicting the location of magnetic north vaguely conceived as "Insula Magnetu[m]" (Latin for "Island of Magnets") off modern day Murmansk. The man holding the rune staffs is the Norse hero Starkad. Source: Wikipedia.com.
Location of modern day Mermansk.
Location of modern day Mermansk. Source: Wikipedia.com.

Magnetic North, as you probably know, has never been equivalent to the rotational North Pole.  In 1539 magnetic north was located in Mermansk, which is in Northern Russia, and in 1831 it was located in Northern Canada.  You may be asking, what the heck is going on here? Or just: “You idiots at The Daily Discord are geologically challenged!” Well, wait just a darn minute.  It’s geography, not geology for starters…and since its discovery in 1831, there have been several expeditions to verify its location. The most recent continual measurements were conducted by the Canadian government, who may or may not have been playing hockey naked (hint: you should never combine ice skate blades with an unbridled Zamboni).

Those expeditions and measurements have found that the Earth’s North Magnetic Pole is moving, and fast.  So fast, in fact, that in the 20th Century alone it moved over 1,000 kilometers (~700 miles).  That’s about as far as Kevin Smith can fly with Southwest Airline, before being booted off his connecting flight.  Recent measurements confirm that our magnetic pole’s rate of movement is actually accelerating at an alarming rate. Does the Earth’s magnetism have anything to do with the engineers at Toyota?  Such an absurd notion may be closer than you think…

In 1970, the rate of movement of the magnetic north pole was 9 km/yr (~5 miles/yr).  Between 2001 and 2003, its average rate of movement was over 41 km/year (~25 miles/year)! No one seems to have any explanation for this anomaly….until now.  No, I’m not talking about the Ghetto Shaman’s Mayan ancestors swooping in from the center of the galaxy. The skilled scientists here at The Daily Discord do have a viable explanation. It’s a historical fact that magnetic north, when initially discovered, was located in the Eastern Hemisphere within the Arctic Circle.  Since that time, it has been slowly moving westward.  Why?  Simple: ferrous metal (not to be confused with hard rock playing weaselly rodents).

The highest concentrations of human society were located in the Eastern Hemisphere when magnetic north was first discovered.  Subsequently, the Industrial Revolution in England and Europe from the 1600s through the 1900s resulted in large quantities of ferrous metal that ultimately skewed the location of magnetic North (this time, quite by coincidence, I am talking about hard rock playing weaselly rodents). Since magnetic North wasn’t exactly located until 1831, there was no hard data available to support that indication.

Position of magnetic north pole by year
Source: Wikipedia.com

Fast forward into the early 1900s. Not too fast—I was drinking last night.  In the 1900s development in the U.S. was growing at a rapid rate.  By the mid 1900s, the large amount of ferrous metals, then concentrated in the U.S., had been “pulling” magnetic North into the Western Hemisphere.

In the past several decades, China has been growing out of control. The large and increasing concentration of ferrous metals in China are now rapidly “pulling” magnetic North further westward, beyond the influence of the U.S. and its corporate lobbyists.

What’s next, you ask?  By the year 2030, all compasses on Earth will point to Beijing.  You can bet on it. And my second prediction: all blogs will be pointing toward The Discord. 

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