Sunday, November 11, 2007

Egads, I've been tagged!

Much like the side of a building in the ghetto, where crack flows like screw-top wine, I’ve been tagged. (Whoooo! Three stereotypes in the first sentence—I’m off to a great start!) The whole concept of tagging on the blogosphere is interesting. Allow me to illustrate the abstract concept of the tagger–tagee relationship with the help of an Aristotelian dialog:

“Hey, pal! I’ve just tagged you!”
“Tits, bro. What do I get?”
“You get to answer all these questions!”
“You gave me a test, basically, is what you’re saying?”
“Yeah, when you look at it that way, I suppose I did.”
“Well, check this out. I’ve just pricked you, dude!”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means I just injected you with a syringe full of baboon malaria. Now we’re even.”
“Can I blog about this?”
“Well, I sort of assumed you would.”
“Neat!”

And so it goes, from person to person, like a more horrifying version of that stupid tape from those Ring movies. What’s with that shit, by the way? Japanese people are afraid of pale, attention-hungry teenage girls? If that’s the case, we could have just dropped a chain of Hot Topic stores on them during WWII instead of those nukes. But I digress.

Prunella Jones—or Pru, as all the cool kids refer to her—tagged me a while back. Since I’m a fan of her blog, and I’m such a classy bastard, I decided to complete the tag rather than just ignore it like I’ve been ignoring all those dead Mormons someone’s been leaving at my door.

Since everyone loves lists (just ask the dildos in charge of programming at VH1), here’s a list of seven random facts about me. [Editor’s note: The veracity of Morb’s claims cannot be guaranteed.]

1: I’ve been in a lot of bands.

One of the bands I was in was fronted, unbeknownst to me, by an escaped mental patient. I only found out later when he disappeared and authorities from his institution showed up asking about him. Apparently he was violent and escaped after breaking a table over some people.

I was in a band, for a short time, with a guy who drove a hearse and made extra money participating in underground fights. He disappeared.

One of the bands I was in had a sort of joke mythology based around their various bass players, claiming they were all, once they joined the band, the reincarnation of a Tibetan monk. When I joined, I assumed that role. At one point I even signed autographs in Chinese.

2: I was a model student.

I graduated from college with highest honors, meaning I had a gpa of 4.0 and perfect attendance. When I graduated I got to wear two golden ropes. At the time I thought they just gave me those ropes because they were too cheap to pony up some Chucky Cheese tokens for my grades, but I later realized the gold ropes were to hang myself with when my awesome grades wouldn’t get me a decent job.

3: I like books.

I read a lot. In fact, the majority of my free time is dedicated to reading. I’m really just a book nerd, to be completely honest. Were I a rich man, I would probably have all kinds of first editions like that old Satan worshiper from The Ninth Gate. While my collection is humble to say the least, I have an out-of-print edition of Musashi’s Go Rin No Sho from 1974 that’s pretty sweet, and I just got a first edition copy of The Interrupted Journey (yes, that’s the book about the Hill alien abduction case from the 1960s).

I do like classic literature—everything from David Copperfield to The Canterbury Tales—but right now I’m really into collecting old, obscure occult and UFO/lost civilization/cryptozoology–related books. By the way, if anyone has a copy of Keel’s The Eighth Tower (1975) they’d be willing to part with for less than twenty-five bucks, please send me an e-mail. I could just order it from amazon.com, but I don’t want to spend the amount they’re asking. I’m a smart shopper, goddamnit.

4: It’s not about me, but it’s a fact.

It is always better
to avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning.
For every one of us, living in this world
means waiting for our end. Let whoever can
win glory before death. When a warrior is gone,
that will be his best and only bulwark.


5: I like alcohol.

I used to drink a gallon of whiskey every weekend.

6: I think this is funny for some reason.




7: I accidentally conjured some spooky shit one time.

I was minding my own business, reading a copy of the Necronomicon I found in the discount bin at the bookstore. Some of the incantations in the book are so ridiculous, I was reading them out loud and having a good laugh. I mean, “zi dingir enmeshir raa kanpa” sounds like a retarded hairlip trying to order Thai food or something. But, suddenly, to my surprise and irritation, someone was in the room with me. I was able to snap a picture with my camera phone.


Azag-Thoth: You conjured me, mortal?
Morbid Misanthrope: Excuse me?
AT: Oh, come on! Don’t tell me you’re just another loser dabbling in the occult in his mom’s basement. Because, seriously, I’ve seen more of that action than I’d care to admit.
MM: Who are you, and what are you doing in my apartment?
AT: Your own apartment? Thank the elder gods! Man, if I had to face one more overweight, cheetos-huffing Dungeons and Dragons jerk-off in a felt cloak his mother made for him, I … I just don’t know what I would do.
MM: You, uh, have an irrational fear of twenty-sided die, do you?
AT: Enough of this. You have conjured me, mortal. From the blackest depths of sleepless aeons I have heard your incantations and answered with my presence. Before I lose my temper and rip your tongue from your head, tell me what you want whith Azag-Thoth, the Blind Idiot God!
MM: I summoned you?
AT: Yes, with that ancient and powerful tome you hold in your hands.
MM: Dude, this is the Necronomicon.
AT: Verily, the key to unlocking the door that holds the hordes of unspeakable evil at bay.
MM: Right. It sort of says that on the back of the book, right under the discount price tag.
AT: Three dollars? Goddamn. Seekers of the book’s ancient power used to have to scour the darkest corners of the earth, search the blackest depths of their souls, and brave the dangers of the secret realms of the universe to lay hands upon it. Wow. Things have really changed in the last few thousand years.
MM: I suppose that helps to explain why so many basement-dwelling mouth-breathers were able to conjure you, doesn’t it?
AT: To be honest, it’s all a bit depressing.
MM: I guess the dark arts just aren’t what they used to be.
AT: You know, it’d make me feel a lot better if you had me rain some fire, pestilence, and madness on the earth. I’d settle for the neighborhood, though. Can I at least rain down fire, pestilence, and madness on your neighborhood?
MM: Be my guest, but there’s a meth lab next door and a creek full of homeless junkies talking to themselves and surviving on nothing but urine and toenails. I don’t think anyone would notice.
AT: Well, I’m here. You conjured me. I ought to do something.
MM: You can explain to me how a fictional book written by H.P. Lovecraft enthusiasts less than one hundred years ago is ancient or powerful.
AT: To make a long story short, it’s kind of like that Lovecraft story, “Pickman’s Model.”
MM: You mean how the subjects of the terrifying works of art Pickman painted came from reality rather than his own imagination?
AT: Essentially, yeah.
MM: That was a fucking cool story.
AT: Wasn’t it?
MM: Well, I suppose you are magic, otherwise you wouldn’t have been able to bypass all my dangerous ninja traps getting in here.
AT: You mean those empty soda cans tied together with dental floss hanging from your doorknob?
MM: Hey, if you’re real, does that mean all those other ancient gods are real too? Like, do you, Dagon, Cthulhu, and Shub-Niggurath have a poker night or something?
AT: Cthulhu's been a big-headed prick ever since Metallica wrote that song about him. You can’t even talk to that asshole without going through his publicist these days. Dagon, well, he’s a big, gay bitch—like Aquaman with tentacles and shit. And I haven’t seen Shub since the supreme court ruled she had to drop Niggurath from her name because it was offensive to black people. The last time anyone saw her, she was swilling gin and threatening to kick Jesse Jackson’s ass with Al Sharpton’s foot. She pretty much abandoned her thousand young—a fuckin’ tragedy, that’s what it is.
MM: Sounds like the realm of the ancient ones is a car crash away from being a shitty episode of VH1’s Behind the Music.
AT: Thanks, asshole. I’m not sensitive about it or anything. You wanna make fun of all the weight I’ve gained in the last thousand years, too? Hey, maybe you can call my wife and make fun of my limp dick with her. I bet she’d love that!
MM: Wow. Sorry, dude. I didn’t think a blind, mad god would be so tender-hearted.
AT: You know what? Fuck you, pal! Okay? Just fuck you! In fact: Barra Ante Malda! Bam! The milk in your fridge is now spoiled, and all your new batteries are dead. How’s that for evil, you prick?
MM: It’s more rude than evil, really.
AT: Whatever, ass. If my whore wife comes looking for me, tell her I’m at Boston Market, eating meatloaf that isn’t all dry and shitty for a change!

And then he disappeared and I haven’t heard from him since.

That completes my obligations as a tagee, and because I’m such a goddamned rebel, I’m not tagging anyone. How’s that for anti-social behavior? Random fact about me number eight: I'm a dick.

12 comments:

morbidneko said...

could you tell azag-thoth he left his butterfly catching net at my place again?

some blind mad gods would lose their ass if it wasnt nailed to their bodies..

Anonymous said...

I got a good LOL off of the 'my great grades won't get me a decent job bit'. So sad, and so true.

Prunella Jones said...

Pretty cool, Morb.

I especially liked number seven. It reminded me of an afterschool special I saw, starring Judd Nelson as the shy D&D playing kid who goes mad from the power of Satan. Good thing you conjured up one of those minor grumpy old man demons instead of the fiestier type. He might have made you shoot your face off while listening to Judas Priest, surely the most embarrassing way to go.

Thanks for playing. These memes are stupid for sure, but I look at them as a necessary evil. You know, kind of like car registration or anal bleaching.

BD said...

Those bands... mental?

RE: Random Fact 8, it doesn't seem you tagged anyone so that re-establishes your status as not quite a dick for a while.

morbid misanthrope said...

morbidneko -- That silly, old, blind and mad god. He does love butterflies. I guess underneath all of that ancient evil tongue-ripping brutality, he's really just a big softy.

mister underhill -- The most important thing I learned in college was how to write term papers for slacker students in exchange for bottles of whiskey. Someone would really have to be a scholastic fuck off to trust a 17-year-old drunk on ten-dollar whiskey to write their papers for them. Not that I'm judging ... or complaining.

prunella jones -- Judd Nelson will always be the voice of Hot Rod from the Transformers animated movie to me, but I suppose a power mad Satan worshipper is pretty cool, too.

You're right, of course: shooting yourself in the face while listening to Judas Priest is a pretty tired--and gay--way to go out. It is, however, slightly less gay than accidentally choking yourself to death in a closet mid-sex act like that guy from INXS. Or did Courtney Love shoot him and Kurt Cobain? I can never remember this crap.

Thanks for tagging me. Aside from accidentally conjuring the occasional ancient god from the depths of infinite blackness, not much happens to me. If it weren't for being tagged, I would have had little to blog about.

bd -- Well played, dude. I hadn't thought of it that way. Be careful, though: pointing out that kind of thing is a good way to get yourself tagged.

morbidneko said...

does A-T still drop in every now and then, now that you've conjured him?

or, was the visit a one time sort of deal?

honkeie said...

I am a rare book freak too but I do have any as of yet. I have dreams of gradure, to have one of those libraries in my manson that is 2 stories high. Full of leather bound old books. I got the Necronomicon from the discount bid too when I was in high skool, I got a real kick out of the 'spells' They were above and beyond the most rediculous things since blessing ones self with bacteria filled water before going into a building full of little boy butt bangers.

morbid misanthrope said...

morbidneko -- I haven't seen him since. I finished reading the Necronomicon shortly after that encounter, so I can't imagine accidentally conjuring anyone else ever again. I hear if you read any of Al Gore's books, you can conjure a thick green cloud that smells suspiciously like a heard of flatulent cattle.

honkeie2 -- I don't have the two-story library myself, either, but I have a large bookcase pert near full of books. The only leather one I have is this art book they made me buy in college. It's good for using to smash bugs and finding the names of depressed artists to make fun of.

Funny how the Necronomicon gets around, isn't it? Its incantations even sound stupid in Morbid Angel songs; although, the songs themselves are pretty cool.

UBERMOUTH said...

Sorry I don't believe the perfect school attendance.

What's the point in collecting anything? YOU are only going to die and ppl are going to be throwing that shit OUT! Isn't it better to save it and treat yourself in a huge way, on something that you can always enjoy- like a better coffin?

Not to be a downer or anything.

morbid misanthrope said...

ubermouth -- The perfect attendance is actually true. I was a model student, even though I was drunk most of the time. I was so hungover during finals, I threw up in a campus trashcan before going to class and getting a perfect score on one of my exams. Studying drunk is easy when you have no social life to pull you away from your academic responsibilities.

I collect the books mainly because I want to read them and buying them is the only way. And every book I buy keeps my money from going to a deserving charity, which is kind of funny.

Madam Z said...

Your number 7 is pure genius and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Except for the "sounds like a retarded hairlip trying to order Thai food or something" part, that is. My own "retarded hairlip" is not accompanied by a cleft palette, thank Thoth, but it has sure caused me enough problems, socially and self-esteem wise. But I digress. My goal here is to praise you for the amusing and imaginative dialogue you created. Unless it's actually true, of course, in which case I want to praise you for interacting in such a fearless way with that scarey bugger.

morbid misanthrope said...

madam z -- I didn't mean to offend hairlips--cleft palette or not--with that simile. But, honestly, the only thing worse than the sounds a hairlip ordering Thai food produces is the visual created by the hairlip eating the Thai food. Talk about offensive. Good god, watching one of those bastards eating Pad Thai is like watching a drooling buttcrack osmose rat tails. Terrifying.

Anyway, I'm glad you enjoyed that supernatural dialog. It cost me a carton of milk and, like, three AA batteries. A small price to pay to entertain anonymous people for minutes at a time to be sure.