January 27, 2009

Hell Hath Frozen Over

I have always been accused of having a sick sense of humour and I've never denied it. I am, undoubtedly, a bit warped. I've found Despair funny since my teaching days. In 2006, I discovered this little t-shirt place which made me guffaw at damn near every shirt. It's one of those places that does social commentary that hurts and it's only for those who have a warped sense of humour.

I mean, you can take "Arrest Black Babies Before They Become Criminals" one of two ways. Either the person saying such a thing is a freaking racist dumbass ... or they're making fun of the freaking racist dumbass idiots who think that statement isn't too far off the mark.

Of course, I found the "Don't Mess with Texas ... it's not nice to pick on retards" offensive (no, not really, just cringe-worthy) because there's just no truth to that one at all, and I got sick of some of the drinking/sex shirts. But that's just me, those aren't my taste.

"Slavery Gets Shit Done"
Pezbians (you have to see the image on that one)
"This T-Shirt is 100% Organic"
"You Can't Have Manslaughter Without Laughter"
"White Flour" (I still snort every time I see this one. No, not snort the white flour OR the white powder. Sheesh.)
"I Put the Syn in Synagogue"

These are just a few of the ones that make me snort, guffaw and chuckle.

Of course, skating the knife edge of satire means that some folks just don't get it. My mom, for example, would be highly offended (or think she should be offended - there's a difference) by most of the shirts at T-shirt Hell. Some folks are looking to be offended. Some are born without a funny bone ... and some just honestly don't see the black humour as funny.

Unsurprisingly, people who don't get it have to bitch about it. "We're not going to buy your shirts and we're gonna tell our friends not to buy your shirts." Uhh, fine. You're not the target audience anyway.

Apparently, though, some folks took their little whine-fest threats further. The owner of T-shirt Hell is sick of the idiots. Sunshine Megatron (really? Please tell me that's a screen name. Or that Sunshine's mom was the hippy from hell) has announced the closing of T-shirt Hell.

I'm done. I'm finished. I can't take the stupidity anymore, so I'm leaving and I'm taking my website with me. As of Tuesday, Feb 10, 2009, T-Shirt Hell will be no more.

Most of my longtime readers (I know, there's like one of you and even my best friend from high school quit reading this blog a long time ago), know that I'm gay. A queer. One of "those" people. My other half, in my opinion, often is a little too quick to be offended by something she thinks is directed at gay folk. But apparently, the straw that finally broke Sunshine Megatron's happy centered around a t-shirt that made me and my other half guffaw:

I just don't feel like dealing with idiots anymore. I'll give you an example of the kind of misguided morons we deal with on a regular basis at T-Shirt Hell. We released a new shirt a couple weeks ago that says "It's not gay if you beat them up afterwards". I will not explain the irony or the social commentary of the slogan because anyone with half a brain should be able to handle that on their own. Problem is, we've been besieged with emails from angry people complaining about the "fact" that the shirt is hate speech or that we're promoting gay bashing and should take it down immediately. ...

Now, I can't say I'm surprised we're getting hate mail from people who have nothing better to do than to start half-assed campaigns because of their lazy, just enough passion for an email, ideals towards a misguided cause. It happened when we did our first really controversial shirt, "The School Shootings Tour", it happened when we did our "What About All The Good Things Hitler Did" shirt, it happened when we did our "Arrest Black Babies Before They Become Criminals" shirt (boy did it happen then). It used to happen all the time when we did more social commentary and didn't give a fuck about what anyone thought and did shirts that did not leave anyone out. Unfortunately, as a concern for the safety of my employees, we don't push the envelope as much anymore...and I can't say I feel good about having caved in.

And so, if you want any shirts from T-shirt Hell, you've got a very limited time to get there.

And that makes me sad. The world needs more funny. Even warped, biting funny. Hell, especially warped, biting funny that reminds us what effed up critters we really are as a species.

Things like losing T-shirt Hell makes the economic downturn even more depressing.

The world just got a little colder.

(Full disclosure - yeah, that's an affiliate link (most of the time) when I'm talking about T-Shirt Hell. If you click thru any link except the one to Pezbians, and then you buy a shirt, I get $4. Well, I only get $4 per shirt if four more shirts get sold before they close. Yeah, I suck. In three years of being an affiliate, only 9 shirts sold through my links. That's $36. They pay out at $50. I sooooo suck.)

Posted by Red Monkey at 4:31 AM | Comments (2) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | People Say I Have ADHD, But I Think - Hey Look, A Chicken | Stumble

January 18, 2009

Wrong Planet

I have often been accused of being an alien creature. Kids in elementary school often didn't quite know what to do with me, and, I admit, I really didn't quite know what to do with them either. I can remember the summer before oh, probably eighth or ninth grade when I spent time with my much beloved aunt and uncle who lived in Milwaukee.

I saw the old Brewer's logo for the first time. A baseball glove made up of an m and a b ... with the baseball the negative space inside the lowercase b. I was completely enthralled. (Check it out in desktop size here.)

I loved things that were made from ... well, from themselves. Milwaukee Brewers ... m b ... in the shape of a baseball glove and baseball. It just struck my symmetry bone, I guess.

This conversation all comes about because of the logo of the Minnesota Wild - a bear's head logo that's a nature scene (check it out here) ... the mouth of the bear is a river ... the eye is a star (yanno, their old hockey team was the Stars). These kinds of double meaning logos just utterly enthrall me.

And all of this reminds me that not everyone is fascinated with what I'm fascinated with. I no longer always think that makes me an alien ... but this particular instance I'm about to relate ... well, it certainly made the sales clerk think I was at least "special."

Mom and I were in some stupid girly store that I wanted to leave as quickly as possible. High end this and that which I cared nothing about. We go over to the sales counter to check out and there's a little display of girly jewelry. Including necklaces similar to this:

I instantly began giggling like a mad thing. I could barely stand upright. Finally, I managed to weakly whisper, "Gold leaf" and then immediately collapsed in a fit of guffaws the likes of which the poor sales lady had apparently never seen before.

I, on the other hand, could not only not stop laughing, I could not understand why everyone who saw a necklace representing a gold leaf and which was made out of something similar to gold leaf (think old leather books embossed in gold - that stuff was called gold leaf), I could not understand why everyone who saw that necklace did not see the humour inherent in it.

My mother, luckily, chose that moment to listen and understand me. She smiled and tried to explain to the saleslady that I was laughing because the gold leaf was made of gold leaf, but the sales clerk just gave mom that "oh you poor thing having to deal with a special child" look. Which both offended me and made me laugh harder.

Oh my, but I was rather a child from another planet. Good thing I've always enjoyed being that way.

Posted by Red Monkey at 9:03 PM | Comments (1) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | People Say I Have ADHD, But I Think - Hey Look, A Chicken | Stumble

December 7, 2008

Time Capsule

I have always had a love for "old things." If I found an ad, a magazine, a newspaper clipping, radio ... whatever ... that was "old," I was in heaven. I poured over photo albums, fascinated by the changes in clothes or hair or even body types. I noticed the "old-timey" fonts well before I could name them. The way that little curlicues or plain lines were added to newspapers or ads.

So when our church decided to build a family bathroom that was accessible and we pulled out the "cornerstone" which held the church's time capsule, I knew I wanted to take pictures and scans of as much stuff as possible. Unfortunately, I completely forgot about it last weekend - the holiday and some various "real life" issues kind of distracted me. Then I got sick this week and didn't go over Saturday ... so today after service, I had my computer, scanner and camera with me and proceeded into a back room with all the stuff that had been inside the time capsule.

The time capsule is a copper box which was welded shut and placed in the A.D. 1964 cement block near the front door. Inside were newspapers from 1914 and 1963 ... photos ... bulletins ... magazines ... meeting notes ... all sorts of stuff.

One of my favourites, though, was a little envelope with a small card inside ... marked Ladies Aid 1924 ... and 3 pennies: 1902, 1916 and 1963. Of course I scanned the pennies!

One of my other favourite things, though, I admit it. I love old marketing things. Whether it's an ad or packaging, I'm just fascinated. This was one of my favourites from a directory:

Posted by Red Monkey at 7:36 PM | Comments (1) | People Say I Have ADHD, But I Think - Hey Look, A Chicken | Stumble

December 3, 2008

This is Whack, Yo

So, because I'm just essentially a very irreverent person who enjoys a sick sense of humour just a little too much ... and probably because I went to high school with one of these dudes (well, two of them, but I only knew one) ... I bring you ...

Whack A Santa

This was an early Flash project for me ... one of these days I keep intending to go back and clean up the graphics a bit.

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:11 AM | Comments (2) | Design | People Say I Have ADHD, But I Think - Hey Look, A Chicken | Stumble

November 29, 2008

There's Just No Explaining Comfort Food

With most of my readers stuffed to the gills with turkey these past few days, I thought I'd share one of my most favourite recipes ever - one that does NOT include any turkey of any type.

Having grown up primarily in Texas, chili was actually not one of my favourite meals because I was not fond of my mother's midwestern version of the dish. She used stewed tomatoes, which many folks use, but I happen to hate. In addition, there was no heat to any of mom's cooking, and I have to admit, I love the heat. Her chili was really more of an odd hamburger and tomato soup to me.

And then dad brought home some Wolf Brand Chili.

Yeah, I know. It looks a lot like dog food. But the truth of the matter was it was a better style of chili for me. It wasn't long after this discovery that I also discovered a little side dish at Sonic: Frito Pie.

Now, at Sonic, they took one of those little red and white paper "baskets" that they served french fries in, they sprinkled some Fritos in there, spooned some good chili over the top and then decked it off with shredded cheese and some onions.

Absolute heaven to me.

Today, sadly, Sonic has totally screwed up their Frito Pie and turned it into a freaking WRAP! As if it needed to be wrapped up in a tortilla. WTF?

Anyhow, some midwesterners (and others) know this as a "walking taco" ... made in a single serving Frito bag instead of in a little paper basket.

Out of curiosity and helpfulness, I decided to look up an official Frito Pie recipe to share with my Twitter buddies down in NOLA. (That's New Orleans, Lousiana ... but I just like saying NOLA, so that's what I type now.)

The best article talks about the start of Fritos ... a story I found pretty interesting. I don't know what the secret is to Fritos over other similar corn chips, but there's a very distinct difference - and when making a Frito Pie, I guarantee you'll notice a difference even if you can't tell the typical corn chip from the Frito under normal situations.

Fritos were originally "invented" in the 1930s, in San Antonio. Eventually they were moved up to Dallas.

Without further ado, here's the best "recipe" for Frito Pie ... found at TexasCooking.com: (with of course, my variations)

• most of a bag of Fritos corn chips
• half a chopped red onion
• 1 package shredded cheese - I prefer the Mexican blend with queso blanco y asadero cheeses
• 1 can of Hormel hot chili with no beans

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Pour about half the bag into a baking dish. Sprinkle about half the cheese and about half the onions in next. Dump in the chili and top off with more cheese and onions.

Bake for 15 or 20 minutes or until cheese is bubbly. Serve hot.

Now here's the odd thing. (I mean if you don't think Frito Pie is odd enough.) If you do the same thing but make it in the microwave? It's not as filling nor as good. I do NOT understand how it is more filling if you bake it instead, but I no longer make this in the microwave after discovering the baked version. I can fairly easily polish this meal off on my own if I microwave it. (My other half thinks this is one of the most disgusting concoctions ever - even worse than guacamole.) But, if I bake it, I can barely eat a quarter of it.

So, there you have it. One of my favourite comfort foods.

(And, Sonic, if you're reading this ... ditch the damned Frito Pie wrap and bring it back the way it's supposed to be!)

Posted by Red Monkey at 12:24 PM | Comments (2) | People Say I Have ADHD, But I Think - Hey Look, A Chicken | Stumble

October 31, 2008

No Real Than You Are

Once again, Ego Leonard has struck. Last August, some folks in the Netherlands discovered a 2.5 meter giant LEGO man washed ashore at Zandvoort beach. Later, the LEGO dude with "No Real Than You Are" emblazoned on his chest showed up at Dance Valley.

This time around, another giant (this one 6 foot) LEGO man with the same "No Real Than You Are" emblazoned on his chest has washed ashore on a beach in Brighton, England.

What I wanna know is ... why? I've yet to see anything on the point of the giant LEGO men and, in fact, why is this not some kind of copyright infringement - I suppose it's because Ego Leonard has only made a couple of them.

But why? What's the point of giant LEGO men?

Posted by Red Monkey at 10:44 AM | Comments (2) | People Say I Have ADHD, But I Think - Hey Look, A Chicken | Stumble