The Lukewarm Butterknife
Fireaxe Newsletter - edition 11.3.1
Apr. 1, 2008
"Eat your Damn Vegetables!"
- Title of the worst selling diet book of all time.
Oddly enough it is also one of the most effective
diets of all time
Well, Fireaxe's founder has been eating loads of vegetables
as of late as part of his post-cancer health regimen and has discovered
what a number of body-builders and other ripped individuals have
discovered, that the modern diet is yet another bunch of bullshit that
most of us have grown up believing in. Yes, Brian's on the infamous
"Cave man diet" where you only eat stuff that our ancestors would have
been able to hunt, gather, or pick, with a bunch of olive and flaxseed oil
thrown in for good measure. It's pretty much vegetables as an appetizer,
then meat as an entree, then more vegetables on the side, then more
meat for dessert, and then some seeds thrown in here and there for
snacks. Variety, hardly, but you can eat as much as you want, not
that you really want to. The results speak for themselves though, Brian
dropped ten pounds off of a frame that didn't look like it needed to lose
ten pounds and ended up looking a lot like a stone age denizen. Yes,
he's lean and sinewy with knuckles that drag along the ground and a
new unibrow to accent his now sloped forehead. But seriously, his
body does seem to be working better now that it's being fed things that
it was evolved to digest rather than stuff that simply tastes good.
Strange how that works. Maybe the idea of casting aside things that
stimulate the senses rather than what's good for you applies to other
areas of life as well. It's worth a try.
If you were wondering why this year's Lukewarm Butterknife
was so short, part of the reason was that I felt that I could not complete.
After all, the entire world is becoming one big self-satire and the more
I read the paper of watch the news the more bizarre and hypocritical
the world becomes. From the above moral hazard quote from a prime
minister to leaders in the U.S. calling our slow and agonizing retreat
in Iraq a victory, the bullshit was really piling up. Then next thing I
know a prominent lawyer justifies torture in the US by stating that the
president can break Federal laws simply because he is the commander
in chief, and he then goes back to his comfortable job teaching the next
generation of lawyers how to chuck their morality and become whores
for their clients like he is. Was that an April Fool's joke Mister Yoo?
And somehow, the maestro of our current economic mess, "Easy" Alan
Greenspan, is claiming that he had nothing to do with it, despite the
Fed's refusal to enforce sound regulations on mortgages and, on many
occasions, Alan's personal endorsement of "moral hazard" practices
which inflated bubbles across the world. How can I possibly measure
up to gags like that?
And if you want to know how bad it is, just read over the last
few editions of The Burning Blade and you'll note that I SOUND LIKE
A FREAKING CONSERVATIVE!!!!! A real conservative that is, not
one of those goose-stepping, neo-liberal, war-mongering, torture-loving,
spying-on-people-without-a-warrant-excusing, scripture-quoting,
environment-destroying, arrogant excuses for conservatives who don't
try to conserve anything save for their almighty dollars. But, me? A
conservative? No, I'm a progressive if anything, but we can't make any
progress if the ship of state is sailing off the edge of the world. In any
event, it's bad, folks, and it's getting worse...
Good one, mister Brown! That's the best April fools gag of
them all. Moral hazard? Shmoral hazard! The rich are suffering,
get another cash injection in here, stat! Yes, say what you will about
the British, but they sure know how to elect talented men to the office
of prime minister. Tony Brown was hilarious with his "dodgy dossier",
and Gordon Brown is a sheer comic genius! Honestly, the absurdity of
the leader of one of the most powerful nations in the world advocating
moral hazard as official monetary policy is beyond measure in itself,
and coming from someone in the labor party, the party that's supposed
to represent the folks who are going to get stuck with the bill for his
immoral bailout scheme, that lifts the joke up to the level of true
greatness. I mean, if he was a Tory it still would have been funny,
especially if he'd added something like, "Screw the poor! Let them eat
Haggis!" at the end of the quote to give it some punch, but people might
have thought that it wasn't a joke given how Tories see the world. But
all that aside though, I have to concede that my April Fools gags simply
do not compare to Mister Brown's. My hat is off to you, good sir. Jolly
well done.
Well I suppose that I could hope that the folks at Goldman
Sachs are also putting on an April Fool's gag, but what if they're not?
Well, if that is the case I think that I will cheer on the Dark Goddess as
she dances her way down Wall Street, frolicking in her inimical way,
and laying waste to the great god of Capitalism. Sure, Capitalism may
look big and scary, but most of that bulk is just bloat, because it, like
everything, is made out of bullshit.
A big "Hello" to anyone receiving the Lukewarm Butterknife
for the first time. Yes, this is the official parody of the
Fireaxe newsletter.
What's that? As bad as it has been so far for the banks, hedge
funds, markets, and everything, they've only written off a quarter of the
losses that are coming? You mean, we've only suffered one fourth of the
damage? Yikes! But what about the whole thing with the Fed saving the
banks? Didn't that fix things? What? You mean that all of the banks
are leveraged as insanely as Bear Stearns was and are hanging by a
thread too? Oh no! We are all doomed!
Commence downloading the following sound file now and it should be ready when you're done reading the newsletter, or sooner if you’re a not living in the age of cave men and get your internet through a modem.In 1970 a musician/comedian named Ray Stevens wrote a hit song that was so beautiful and enchanting that it hit number one on the billboard singles chart. This beloved song sold nearly three million copies and helped Ray win a Grammy for best male pop vocal performance that year. Since then it has been translated into over two hundred languages and continues to be one of the most popular songs of all time. From the innocent beginning, with children singing "Jesus loves the Little Children" to that catchy chorus that you just can't get out of your head, "Everything is Beautiful" is a world renowned hit song that will fill your heart with hope and love. It is Ray Stevens' greatest gift to the world.
Now some asshole has come along and screwed it up for everyone. Lyrics please...
Everything is Bullshit
Jesus loves the little children,
Loves them in a most peculiar way.
First he screws their small behinds,
Then he screws their little minds,
And sends them off to fight the next crusade.
And humanists love their little children
They coddle them and build their self-esteem
They keep them safe from bruises
And no one ever loses
Then they wonder why their children can't succeed
Everything is bullshit in its own way.
We must all deny the truth and dream that we'll win someday.
But everybody's bullshit just gets in our way.
So under God we raise our flags and fight those who lead the world astray.
There are none so blind as those who truly believe.
And the holes in their hearts they spread around like a disease.
Because those who inspire, and fan others' fires, bring only destruction and pain.
They promise us glory with heroic stories, and leave us all wanting that fame.
But what they say is bullshit in its own way.
But we embrace it anyway and dream it will all come true some day.
And everybody's bullshit just gets in our way.
And so we say 'To hell with you…I'm going to do it my way'
Guitarzan!
It's like a bullshit war out there.
Your gotta believe, you gotta freakin' care.
Cause if you don't you'll be their bitch.
And end up face down in a ditch.
Politics, religion, and economics too,
are covered in a big swarm of flies.
And if something makes you feel just little too good,
it's probably drowning in lies.
Your money, your house, and all that you've done, are defined in terms that don't mean a thing.
The truth be told: we all die and rot, but that truth won't make your heart sing.
So we believe in bullshit in our own way.
We gotta feed our appetites for dreams that make us feel okay.
And everybody's bullshit just gets in our way.
(Argh, those bastards)
So just keep saying they are wrong,
and you are the one who knows the way.
(Everyone, follow me!)
Everything is bullshit in its own way.
(It's like a freaking disease)
We must all deny the truth and dream that we'll win someday.
(And then everything will be so much better)
And everybody's bullshit just gets in our way.
(Ahhhh, those idiots)
So just keep saying they are wrong,
and you are the one who knows the way.
(But without bullshit, where would we be? I mean, death, that's scary. Who wants to face death? So let's just wish it away with dreams of an eternity in heaven, or reincarnation, or let's all try to 'live life to its fullest' with hedonism and materialism. Yeah, that'll make us feel better. Or hey, we can all buy enormous tombstones so that we can say to the world that 'I was here!' Or even better, make it a huge building, like a library, or a museum, or a pyramid or something and put our names on it so that everyone knows that we made our mark on the world. Hey, that ain't bullshit. That's made of stone!)My apologies to Mr. Stevens, mostly for having though up this idea before he did. Hey, Ray! Wanna get together and record this thing for your next album? Ray? It'll sell, no problem. What with the political season here and the economy in the tank, it's going to click with everyone. This is a song for our times, even more so than "Osama Yo' Mama". Number one with a bullet, Ray! Guaranteed.
Thanks for listening to me rant. I know that in two months time all those April Fool's gags will have been exposed as pranks and I will have egg all over my face. I'm not looking forward to writing the next edition of The Burning Blade 11.4 and explaining why I got suckered in. Perhaps I can bullshit my way through it...Brian Voth - Creator of Fireaxe