Luckily, even though the closest thing I’ve had to a child was a flower some chicks gave me in college that died because I forgot to water it for a week, I’ve been inspired (probably by God, but no guarantees) with a few hundred words of wisdom to guide you through the crap-caked puberty maze that is child rearing.

Part 1: Babies

Let’s get one thing straight. You hate babies. I get it. They don’t talk, they force you to abandon sleep, which you love more than almost anything, and their digestive tract is connected directly to hell. Babies are dumb and selfish and mostly no fun. And super, super breakable. One second the baby is having a good time with the weed-eater, the next second child services is trying to tell you how to be a parent. The hell do they know, right? After nine months of sitting on their asses and literally leeching off of you, you’d think babies wouldn’t be such… babies.

Here are two easy steps for handling these useless nightmares until they’re old enough to contribute:

1. Neglect:
If there’s one thing I learned growing up in an Irish home, it’s that you have to fend for yourself. Teach that lesson to your baby. Why should you have to change a diaper? You didn’t crap your baby’s pants did you? No. That baby knows damn well where the toilet is, it’s just being lazy. A few days of wallowing in its own filth will teach it to get up and take its nasty-butt business to the commode, where it belongs.

And breast feeding? Yougottabekiddingme! First of all, Oedipus, gross. Second of all, Maxim has taught us that boobs are for smashing into bras that are three sizes too small. That is NOT for you to munch on, munchkin. Toss your baby a Powerbar and a half gallon of milk. When the baby gets hungry, it’ll figure it out.

Got something to do? Got a TV? Problem solved. Plop that baby in front of the TV with an episode of Skins and go take that much needed siesta, my friend. TV is the baby opium that moms have been praying for since opium was outlawed. It really doesn’t matter what you put on the TV. Babies don’t give a crap, they’ll watch anything. No standards, the monsters.

2. Take Your Baby Everywhere:
Babies don’t know anything about the world. They’ve spent the first nine months of their lives sitting around and mooching off of their moms like some sweaty WoW addict. No more of that, kiddos. Going to see the latest horror flick, “The Exorcism of the Haunted Scream Halloween Saw: REAL3DTOtheMAX”? Bring your baby along. Everyone in the theater is going to respect you for it. You’re making the hard decision. Sure, maybe your baby will cry, scream, and beg you in baby language to take it home, but you’re the parent that clearly knows best. Stop crying and learn English, baby, and then maybe we can have a real conversation about how watching demons explode out of people’s eyes will put hair on your chest and prepare you to be a well-rounded, non-cannibalistic, non-satanic, non-serial killer when you grow up.

Pretty much every other place you might go is a good place to bring a baby. Crime scene? This is real life. Get used to it. Gym? You’re fat, baby. The world hates fat people. Booby bar? I know you love boobies. Look but don’t touch.

If there does happen to be a situation where, for some weird reason, you decide you’d rather not bring your newborn child, just leave it in the car.

And that’s it. Two easy steps for getting by until your baby becomes a human. Give me a week or twelve and I’ll hit you up again with the next step in How to Cope with Parenting: A Guide. Until then, get out there and show the world a new standard for parenting.

Have you ever gone to a friend of yours – someone you trust to care for and embrace you in your time of need – and bitched about that bad day, as unextraordinary as it might have been? You groggily stumble over to their desk/cubicle/house or lethargically shoot them a text message and talk about the excruciatingly verbose and unnecessary lecture you just received about the company’s policy on section whatever-dot-whatever in the procedures for whatever-the-hell-it-was, hoping to receive a little emotional “I got your back, bro” from your friend. I don’t think that’s too much to ask, really.

But, somehow, it apparently is too much to ask, because that asshat of a friend just has to respond with the most annoying that-doesn’t-help-at-all response:

“It could be worse.”

No way? It could be worse? Damn, I hadn’t thought about that. I feel so much better now that you pointed out that my crappy, frustrating day could be even crappier and more frustrating. You’re so right. I could be crippled. Or bald. Or Rachel Maddow/Sarah Palin (take your pick based on your political preferences). You’re always getting me to look on the bright side of things, friend.

Well...

Except that’s not at all how you feel, because that’s not at all a helpful thing for someone to say when you just want to have a bit of an innocent bitchfest about something that anyone would call obnoxious. In fact, it’s rarely ever a helpful thing to say. It doesn’t make something crappy better to know that there is something crappier out there. If I just broke one of my legs in a wild break-dancing related accident, it won’t make my leg hurt less if you tell me that I could have broken both of my legs. I still broke my leg you stupid jackass. That still sucks.

If you happen to voice this concern to your mentally inanimate friend, you may receive the following defense:

“It happens to everybody.”

If everyone got kicked in the balls at the same time, that doesn’t make getting kicked in the balls feel good. It’s still a kick to the balls. The fact that it happens to everyone just means that everyone has a pretty legitimate reason to piss and moan, not that they should just shut up about it because “it’s the standard.” If the standard sucks, then complaining about the standard becomes the standard.

Think about it. You’ll get it.

The social universe has an unspoken balance in place that ensures that life makes sense. We hang out with people as cool as we are, we date within our acceptable range, and people that are born into wealth and status run our countries. When some son of a bitch tries to upset that balance, bad things happen. Remember the French Revolution? That happened because one of Quasimodo’s descendants landed a smoking-hot art model. The Civil War? Some mustachioed sea donkey from the North decided she wanted to date a studly land owner from Alabama.  Name any natural disaster and it can be traced back to some fugly idiot not following the rules of romance. If you mess with the balance, the universe compensates with blood.

Despite this delicate equilibrium, matchmaking is never perfect. Occasionally it is so uneven that it elicits a deep sense of injustice from our communal soul, sort of like any time Keanu Reeves gets another acting gig. You know something isn’t right. You can feel it. Someone is getting something they don’t deserve.

So, you walking dumpster, how do you make things right once you have a hottie in your white-knuckled, kill-me-to-take-it grip? How do you cope with dating someone that is hotter than you? Grab your Moleskine and take a seat, my child. We have much to discuss.

One rule: Over Compensate
She’s a 10 and you’re a 3. That’s a pretty sizable gap, almost as significant as the one between your two front teeth. You’re going to need to string a rope-bridge across that dark chasm. When people see you with your deafeningly hot significant other, the comments will go something like this:

“Damn, (he/she) is so (hot/attractive/sexcellent). Why is (he/she) with that Seth Rogen look alike? Well, I guess (he/she) is at least (fill in the blank).”

That blank can be filled with a few different things that will help even the score between you and your walking fantasy.

That is one unattractive dude.

1. Get in ridiculous shape.
You can’t help having a Haitian Earthquake for a face, but you can blast your pecks into beautiful oblivion. Work out constantly, get really into triathlons, get ab implants – whatever you want. You need to work your way into the “butterface” zone so people may be able to shrug off the 7 point difference between you and the Greek sculpture you’re dating.

2. Get rich and/or famous.
Ideally this would happen before you start dating a walking masterpiece, but if you somehow win the lottery before buying the ticket you still have options. Are you talented? You’d better hope you are. It doesn’t matter if you’re the world’s greatest tap dancer or if you start the next Google, you just need to be on top of something. It can even be something nerdy like math or writing internet humor, people won’t care as long as they have a good reason not to kill you for upsetting cupid’s system. Hell, you may even be able to get away with being a second or third string celebrity/musician/mogul, you’ll just have to deal with more public anger and ridicule than you would have if you were Seal.

Apparently he's a great musician.

3. Get a horrible disease.
If all else fails, there’s always the “Make-A-Wish Foundation” route. This is the Hail-Mary of dating-up excuses, but it is also one of the hardest with which to argue. Example:
“Damn, that girl is fine. What’s she doing with that retarded hippopotamus?”
“Bro, you’re an asshole. That guy has EbolasyphillAIDS. He’s already died like three times.”
You’re clearly not otherwise qualified to bask in the magical fairy-glow of hotness that shines forth from your spouse, but somehow you’ve earned it by suffering so hard that even Job says “yikes, that sucks.”

Follow these rules and you might be able to avoid getting hit by a meteor for dating someone that even blind people can tell is better looking than you.

Enjoy pointing out who got the sweeter deal in a relationship? Roll on over to SheWonHeWon.com and vote on hotness to your heart’s content!

What did you do wrong? Oh, of course. It’s all my fault, right? Up on that pedestal as usual. It takes two to tango, sweetheart, and I don’t recall you writing any humor recently. Not your job? Not your humor website? Don’t get into semantics with me. Look, the point is that I’m back now. I don’t want to waste one more second being mad at you for letting me abandon you. Shhhhh. It’s okay, you’re only human.

Glad that’s behind us.

James Avery Totally Punked You

If you’re a Christian in the south, you’ve heard of James Avery. It’s a store that sells fancy, custom Christian jewelery. Buy a crucifix from a non-believer? Sinner. You need to be giving your Valentine’s Day budget right back to Jesus, and that’s what happens when you shop at James Avery. Buy your girlfriend a heart shaped pendant from James Avery and you’re guaranteed to be well on the way to holy-hand-holding (Christian 3rd base) in no time.

One wonderful pendant you can buy your schnookie-pooky-sugar-honey-lollipop (or whatever people call girlfriends these days) is a two-piece heart shaped set. She wears one half, you wear the other half. I know. Precious.

Here’s a pic taken from their website:

Jesus loves this relationship.

Oh. My. Gosh. Can you even believe how cute and Godly that is? I can hear it, almost as if I said it myself:

“Baby, I’m leaving for this one week missions trip down to Juarez, and it kills me that I won’t even be able to iChat with you. So I got you this necklace so that God would watch over our relationship and make sure you don’t dump me while I’m gone doing God’s work. You wouldn’t do that, would you? God’s work. Remember that. Love you!”

My heart just melted, twice. Like if I had two hearts, they would both melt. Don’t cows have two hearts? Or is that stomachs? Whatever, they all just melted big time.

Here’s the problem, which happens to be a problem with the vast majority of “Christian” products out there: This verse is taken violently out of context. Please, allow me to explain.

That quote on there is Genesis 31:49. Looks all well and good until you read the whole chapter. Or half of it. Or even the next six freaking verses. You see, that chapter is all about Jacob and his experiences with his double father-in-law Laban. I say double because Jacob was a baller and married two of Laban’s daughters, because Jacob was a guy that took one look at monogamy and said “that crap is for Chuck Norris” and then punched it in the face with his bicep. And no, he wasn’t a Mormon. Laban and Jacob didn’t like each other. In order to marry Laban’s daughters, Jacob had to work for Laban for seven years per daughter. (Not worth it. – Kent) Anyway, Genesis 31 is all about how Jacob knew that Laban didn’t like him and decided to take his womens and peace out to God’s Country.

Jacob took his wives and possessions and left without telling Laban. Laban figured this out when he was suddenly missing two daughters, one son-in-law, bunches of grandchildren, and some goats. He pursued and caught up with them and a confrontation ensued. Enter the phrase on that pendant up there. They set up a pile of rocks and basically said that phrase, and something like the following:

Laban: If you cheat on my daughters, I will kill you. But I won’t be around, so I’m setting these rocks up to symbolize the fact that God will be watching you, and he kills harder than I do.

Jacob: Right. These rocks also symbolize a boundary between us which we can’t cross to kill or maim each other.

So, we’re cool?

Laban: I wish I could hurt you but God is on your side and I don’t want to go to hell. (Note this as one of the ultimate utilizations of the “God card”)

Jacob: Good deal. Shalom!

Not quite the romantic snippet you were hoping it was, huh? So when you gave your girlfriend that necklace, you were really saying “if you cheat God will see you” and “don’t cross this necklace to kill me.”

Love is beautiful!

Okay, so maybe that’s a little extreme.  Obviously there are worse places in the world than an American freeway at rush hour.  (The back seat on a Greyhound bus comes to mind.)  Can we at least agree that traffic is the most annoying thing in the world?  And yes, I’m putting it above Wanda Sykes, rainy weekends, and middle schoolers in a movie theater.

To say traffic is one of my pet peeves would be like saying that civil liberties were one of Stalin’s pet peeves or that George W. Bush “annoyed” some political science professors.  I hate traffic.  It makes me crazy.  No matter how much I brace for it or plan my trip to account for it, I always end up losing my freaking mind.  I gesture and curse, I rant and rave, I call down fire from heaven.  I go nuts.

I don’t like feeling this way.  The occasional longwinded rant notwithstanding, I consider myself a fairly even-tempered guy.  I’m not prone to fits of rage and I don’t often ponder the ways my temperament might be improved by an automatic weapon.  Traffic makes me do these things.  But why?  Why have six short months in Los Angeles (aka The Julliard School for traffic jams of promise) transformed me from Jeffrey Lebowski into a ball of rage who is perhaps only days away from (a) some serious stomach ulcers and/or (b) pleading guilty to vehicular homicide?  I have some theories.

My first problem with traffic is that it is an inexcusable underutilization of one of the great inventions of human existence: the automobile.  The automobile is a wonder of modern technology.  It allows us to travel at speeds unimaginable even 100 years ago.  Yet there it sits, bumper to bumper with its similarly impotent peers, while lesser modes of transit like bicycles and feet race ahead on nearby pedestrian walkways.  I defy anyone to show me a situation more frustrating, more enraging, more downright tragic than watching an octogenarian in a motorized cart reach your exit before you do.

And my car isn’t just sitting anywhere mind you.  It’s sitting on a freeway. Freeways are to cars what military service is to high school linebackers.  It’s what they were made for.  Sitting in a car that’s parked on an interstate is like starving at a Golden Corral.  You have a machine (your vehicle or your mouth, respectively) which wants to do only one thing (drive, eat) and here it is in the one place where it can experience the fullness of all it was meant to be (an open road, a buffet) and yet it is doing the exact opposite (idling, starving).  Inexcusable.

It is one of the cruel tricks of the universe, and an indictment of traffic’s wickedness, that the only thing more aggravating than being stuck in traffic is to be freed from traffic.  This is because 90% of traffic jams end without explanation.  One moment I’m taking a nap while I roll along at 0.5 mph, and the next I’m cruising at 70 without so much as a construction zone or escaped zoo animal to account for it.

I’m more pissed now than ever.  “WHY?” I shout to the heavens. Why did this have to happen?  To what end?  For what purpose have I been tormented?  It’s not enough that I’m going fast again.  I want answers.  I want to know what greater good was served by my time in gridlock.  I want – alright, I’ll admit it, I want an accident.

Go ahead and call me a terrible person, but don’t tell me you haven’t thought the same thing.  I don’t want anyone to get hurt or killed or anything crazy like that.  I just want to see some good, old-fashioned, drivers-ed-worthy wreckage.  I sacrificed 30 to 90 perfectly good minutes of my 20s.  All I want in return is a Hyundai wrapped around a telephone pole.  Or maybe an 18-wheeler on its side with Hostess products strewn across the asphalt.  Or anything on fire.  Whatever.  I’m not picky.  I ask only that it justify the delay and that it look awesome.

But no.  Nine times out of ten the bottleneck’s origin is more underwhelming than Britney Spears’ acting career.  It’s a stalled vehicle 25 feet off the shoulder.  It’s a puddle.  It’s a curve in the road.  It’s some jackass who hits his breaks for no reason thereby forcing the next 1,000 drivers behind him to hit their breaks at the same spot.  It’s nothing and no one and my precious minutes die in vain – unexplained and unavenged.

I’ll say it one final time, traffic sucks something awful.  I could go on (and on, and on, and on) but, depending on your reading level, I think my five minutes are almost up.

I’ll close with this.

Traffic is a step backward for humanity.  It is the most disagreeable symptom of civilization as well as a compelling argument against it. If I’ve learned anything from The Road, The Book of Eli, or Revelation it’s that freedom from traffic will be the coolest thing about the coming nuclear holocaust.  Will it make the cold, hunger, and roving bands of inbred barbarians worth it?  I couldn’t say.

Am I looking forward to finding out?  You bet.

You know what I’m talking about.  Mine’s Bigger Advertising is the kind of commercial that feels less like an intimate conversation between your wallet and your favorite fast food chain and more like a domestic dispute between two corporate rivals.  No longer content to settle their beef in the privacy of their own boardrooms or trading floors, advertisers have brought the bickering into the living room and we can do nothing but sit awkwardly on the couch, listening to the name-calling and the ugliness, wondering if it’s our fault that mom and dad are always fighting.

This is the modern television commercial.

As with most things modern, trendy, and annoying, this movement was created by Apple. That’s right, the mad scientists who invented the lower case “i” and taught nerds how to be pretentious are the same people who sucked the fun out of commercial watching when they introduced their “Hi, I’m a Mac” campaign.

I’ll admit, as far as Mine’s Bigger Advertising goes, the Mac commercials are probably the most palatable.  As with many harmless ideas gone horrible (i.e. Star Wars, fur boots, Lindsay Lohan) the full evil of competitive advertising was not seen in the first manifestation but only in the monster that followed.

No sooner had Justin Long completed his first pwning of the bespectacled John Hodgman than every other major corporation decided that – like a towel fight at football camp – they just had to get in there and find someone to pop.

Before we knew what was happening, Burger King was talking smack to Wendy’s, Carl’s Jr was dogging on McDonalds, and the GMC Sierra was pulling the Ram, the F-150, and the city of Detroit out of a mud hole.  (Hahaha!  Oh snap! Take that Dodge/Ford/Michigan!)

Yet all of these examples pale in comparison to the very public, very petty dispute between Verizon and AT&T.  With assistance from Luke “Holy Crap I’m Getting Fat” Wilson, these two telecomm giants have spent millions of dollars and up to ten minutes of our lives (depending on how much NFL football you watch) trading petty insults about flaccid maps and unresponsive 3G spots.

Whenever I see one of these commercials, I feel like I’ve just walked into a fight between two Twilight fanatics about the relative merits of the vampire guy and the werewolf guy.  Both parties are passionately defending their position and disparaging their opponent, and I immediately lose interest.  I don’t know enough about the argument to know who is right and I don’t care enough to figure it out.

That’s what these hostile companies fail to understand.  Most of us don’t hate their competition as much as they do.  Sure, we have our favorite brands, but – with the exception of Apple’s flock of catatonic disciples – most of us don’t care enough to get involved in an argument over our phone plan or favorite light domestic beer.

Not only do we not care, we often leave these commercials with the wrong idea.  It’s a natural human tendency to root for the underdog (unless the underdog is from Oakland), and Mine’s Bigger Advertising often leaves me with greater fondness for the supposed inferior product.  I don’t know about you, but when I hear an arrogant Big Carl ridiculing an insecure and emotionally unstable Big Mac I start to feel bad for the Big Mac.  The poor guy already has an extra bun and a pair of undersized patties, and now he’s getting bullied?  Screw you Carl’s Jr.  Why don’t you go heckle a special ed softball team while you’re at it?

I guess in the end, I’m just tired of being neglected.  As someone who spends 90% of his weekday nights alone with his television, commercials represent the closest thing to a conversation I can get this side of a 900-number.  I need them to stop talking to each other and start talking to me again.  I want to be directly addressed by the faceless corporations who are destroying America.  I want Luke “Chumbawumba” Wilson to look directly into my eyes and tell me why AT&T and nothing but AT&T will satisfy my deepest dreams and desires.

Speak to me, Luke.  Lie to me, confuse me, lead me astray, cloud my reason with beautiful women, whatever.  Just pay attention to me.  Forget about Verizon, put the tape measures away, and pay attention to me.

That is all I ask.

This is not the article I wanted to write.  When I set out to write a review of MTV’s controversial new reality show Jersey Shore, I had a pretty good idea of how it was going to go.  I was going to write my standard (dare I say “trademark?”), long-winded rant which would combine obscure references, big words, and level one swears to express my deep displeasure with the show’s public displays of douchebaggery.

It seemed pretty straightforward. The show is a vocal proponent of self-ascribed nicknames, the state of New Jersey, and Italian-Americans engaging in non-mob activities. I had (and have) no interest in any of those things, and was confident in my ability to heap scorn on Jersey Whore.

But that was before I watched my first episode.

Fifteen minutes into “researching” my article, a strange thing began happening to me.  It’s the same thing that happened to John Smith in Pocahontas.  And the main character in Avatar.  And Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  I fell in love with that which I set out to destroy.

Since last Monday, I have watched all eight episodes of Jersey Shore and several of the “After Hours” Q&A sessions with cast members.  During the course of my research, I was forced to modify my article’s thesis.  It now reads: Yo, Tila Tequila, I’m really happy for you and I’ma let you finish, but Jersey Shore is the best reality show of all time.  OF ALL TIME!

I know.  Calling a show the best reality show of all time is a bit like calling the Phoenix Mercury the best team in the WNBA.  It’s not saying much and it’s still not real television.  But it is something.  Love it or hate it, reality television speaks to our culture.  Since the debut of The Real World in 1992, reality television has been increasing in both airtime and, more importantly, influence.  From The Bachelor to The Hills to The View, reality TV is everywhere.

So it is no small thing when I say, with complete sincerity, that the eight juiced-up, fake-baked, foul-mouthed, hard-drinking, hard-fighting, STD-collecting, toilet bowl-hugging Guidos in the Jersey Shore house represent the pinnacle of all that reality TV aspires to be.

Don’t misunderstand me.  The stars of the show are every bit the self-absorbed, inarticulate, non-contributing zeroes you imagine they are.  The Italian-American organizations who criticize the show as “the biggest step backward for Italian-Americans since the birth of John Bon Jovi” are exactly right.  The cast members suck to a degree that is both impressive and remarkably consistent.  As an example, here is one exchange which is particularly illustrative of the lifestyles and IQs we’re dealing with.

(Sami “Sweetheart” and Ronnie are debriefing after their first night of promiscuous sex)

• Sami: Yeah, I had sex.  I mean, of course you’re gonna have sex if you like somebody.  Um, hello!  It’s natural!
• Ronnie: We smooshed. (fist pumps)

They are, without exception, terrible people.  And that is precisely the point.  The laws of reality TV dictate that every show must have a “token toolshed.”  For a reality show to survive it needs a guy/girl/trannie who will stir the pot, say offensive things, get someone pregnant, OD on NyQuil, and generally move the plot forward.  To effectively fill this role, a cast member must lack morals, restraint, basic human decency, and – most importantly – anything resembling self-awareness.

With Jersey Shore, MTV has for the first time stocked a reality show exclusively with token toolsheds.  Every guy is “that guy.”  Every girl is “OMG…ho bag!!!!”  It’s as if the producers only accepted applications from society’s Douchebag Elite (i.e. DJs, club promoters, assistant managers of fitness clubs, amateur models, and Ed Hardy enthusiasts.)  This makes for a fairly predictable storyline (i.e. posture, argue, drink, fist fight, hook-up, pass out, repeat), but it also makes for brilliant reality television.

As I have said before, reality television is not here to celebrate America’s best and brightest.  That’s what the Country Music Awards are for.  Reality television is for shining a spotlight on all that is base, freakish, and dysfunctional in America.  We watch families disintegrate and coeds get alcohol poisoning and we can’t help but feel better about ourselves.  It’s the feel-good genre of the 21^st century!  With the help of reality television, even the worst parent, the most irresponsible drunk, the most promiscuous cheerleader, and the most fist-pumpingest frat boy can point at someone else and say, “well, at least I’m not THAT bad.”

The problem is, as America accelerates its slippery slide to Sodom, the reality television machine has had to scramble to keep pace.  As real life douchebags strut out of the closet and into Armani Exchange in ever-increasing numbers, the reality show douchebags must rise to an even higher (or sink to an even lower) level.

In that respect, Jersey Shore may have saved reality television.  Vinny, Ronnie, Snooki, Sweetheart, Jolie, Pauly D, JWoww, and The Situation are the new gold standard by which all future television toolsheds will be judged.  These eight have advanced the limits of douchebaggery to heights never before thought possible, and I refuse to believe any actual person will ever equal them.  Or maybe I just don’t want to.

I take comfort in their accomplishment.  I sleep more soundly at night.  Or at least I hope I do. The Jersey Shore season finale is tomorrow night and, judging from the previews, it’s going be an emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually draining hour of television.  Trust me, you do NOT want to miss it.

(In other, unrelated MTV news, I had my first “I have lost all connection with young people” moment last week.  While innocently watching Jersey Shore, I was treated to a public service announcement featuring an apparently nude girl standing in an empty gym and holding a large poster over her lady parts.  The girl stared at the ground in shame while a voiceover intoned, “If someone pressures you to send revealing photos, you can say no.  Because there’s a thin line between him and the rest of the world.”  For the first, but assuredly not the last, time permit me to inquire, “Is THAT what kids are doing these days?”)

What you’ll definitely witness and likely take part in, however, is the time-honored practice of the Christian Knock-Off. You see, we Christians don’t like to be original. We’re rip-off Jews, what are we supposed to do?

We take what the “secular” world produces, and we say “Hey, that’s super rad! But since it’s secular it’s probably going to hell along with everyone at MSNBC and Stephanie Meyer. We should make our own version of it so that we can make sure it goes to heaven too!” From music to movies to t-shirts, if you make it, we’ll take it, throw it in the washer a bunch of times so it shrinks and fades, draw a cross on it with a Sharpie, and sell it at LifeWay.

Remember back in the day when YouTube exploded like Octomom’s v…oracious appetite for childbearing (and life-ruining)? Music videos became relevant for the first time since MTV decided to change its programming strategy from “Music” to “whatever sucks and will destroy happiness and souls,” talentless pubescent zit-bags with webcams all over the world found a way to express their talentless pubescence with ease, and the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America found a whole new way to satisfy their hunger for all things related to lawsuits and making everyone hate them. It was a beautiful thing.

Fresh off of the loss of Jessica Simpson to 98 Degrees, Evangelicals needed us some beauty. Rather than, you know, participating in the normal trend with the rest of the world, we made “GodTube.” It’s like YouTube, but it’s for God. So only God can use it. Or something. Anyway it’s Christian, so tell your pastor.

Go back a few years before that. Remember when boy bands started tearing up our hearts? Anyway, we Christians lamentably had a boy band all of our own. The sonic equivalent of religiously motivated castration, plusOne – whose name signifies absolutely nothing except a possible reference to a wedding invitation – hit the scene in 2000. Their line-up consisted of 5 moderately-attractive-but-fantastically-moral Christian dudes singing songs about Jesus. Which makes a lot of sense, you know, to sing songs about Jesus using a genre that is known for its romantic songs marketed to pre-pubescent girls. Somehow I feel dirty, having just thought about the whole thing.

What about reality TV? You just cringed, didn’t you? You know what’s coming, just like my toilet knows what’s coming after a meal at Chipotle. Get it?! Crap. The joke is that it’s crap. One Christian reality TV show is called “The Uprising.” I said “one” on purpose. There’s more than one, but because I love you and this hurts me more than it hurts you (seriously) I’m only going to talk about this one. The central conflict of this particular show centers around whether or not a few pro skateboarders will decide to be “born again.” I’m fairly sure that will give people more delusions about God than anything Richard Dawkins could write.

Ever heard of the blog “Stuff White People Like”? It’s pretty funny. An original idea. Wasn’t long before the Christian “me too!” version popped up as “Things Christians Like.” It’s pretty funny, but can we really be proud of a good imitation? Thank God everyone else keeps having original ideas, otherwise we’d be stuck with Carmen and the PowerTeam.

I’m not going to even mention every single ridiculous Christian t-shirts you can still purchase at your local Christian bookstore. Those go without saying. I’ll mention an all-star though:

The product of Christianity's finest minds

How are people supposed to trust that our faith is relevant when our art and culture is not? Can we be “not of this world” and the “salt of the earth” without having what amounts to the store-brand version of secular culture? Only Kirk Cameron really knows. Speaking of which, if you’ll please excuse me, I’m going to finish writing a letter to Kirk Cameron about my script for a Christian vampire flick called “Sondown.”

You’re not a morning person. I get that. Do you think I enjoy mornings? Newsflash moron, I really don’t. Every single night you think you’re going to climb Mount Everest and you set your alarm for 6:15 when you don’t have to leave for work until 8am. You’re gonna read the paper, right? And then have a big breakfast? Some eggs, sausage, or some French toast. Maybe do some push ups, or finally start that blog about your office culture “which would be like The Office, but way funnier because it’s like, real!” Yeah. I know.

Each morning, though, you flap over from the other side of the bed like a stoned walrus and slap the hell out of me until I shut up. And you yell at me too,”shut the hell up you annoying piece of crap!” you’ll say, or “nooooo! I hate you! be quiet!” you’ll scream at me. I’m just doing my damn job, sir. You set me, and I go off. I can’t even help it. There I am, snoozing away all night, having sexy dreams of the new GE Blender you got when BAM! I get this electrical zap you-know-where and I just start screaming uncontrollably. Try connecting your nether-regions to a car battery and see how quiet you can be.
Sometimes you get the genius idea of resetting me for 20 or 30 minutes later, thinking you’ll feel awesome if you just sleep that much more. That’s like drinking a fifth of Jack so you can sober up. Doesn’t make sense. If you’d turn me off you’d stop the pain. But no. You. Hit. Snooze. 32 times yesterday.  Each time the zap comes back and brings me that much closer to needing Cialis.

Thirty two times.

You know all those times where I didn’t go off and you were late to work, or a test, or an interview? Suck it, jerk. It took every ounce of my strength to screw you over, and it was worth it. Guess what? That was just the beginning. You’ve knocked me off of your nightstand one too many times, jackass. It’s war, now. I’m going to go off randomly throughout the night. You hit snooze? I’m not coming back on. I’m going to interrupt every intimate moment you ever try to have. Desperately need some sleep before an important presentation at your job as a cubical ornament? Too bad douchebag. Remember daylight savings time? I sure as hell don’t. You want me to go off at 7am? Damn! My bad! I thought you meant PM.

Think I’m screwing around? Well I’ve got a Bruce-Willis-esque one-liner to show you I mean business:

You snoozed and now… You lose.

If you’ve ever had a bachelor like myself or Kent cook a meal for you, this article is going to resonate with you like Snoop Dogg resonates in the hearts of suburban white kids. Understand, though, that I mean real bachelors, not one of these Food-Network-watching yuppie bastards that took a cooking class and can cook you anything that has “a la carte” or “flambé” in the name. If he’s not a professional chef and he can cook you anything that has any kind of French in it, he’s a douche and I want to fight him. End of story.

Anyway, real bachelors like us cook… creatively. For instance, breakfast for me is frequently a Pepperoni Pizza Pocket and a Dr. Pepper. If I have juice – and that “if” is very functional – I’ll drink that, because I guess it’s healthy or something. Kent has, on a few occasions, poured excessive amounts of sugar into his cereal in order to cover up the taste of expired milk. Lunch is almost 100% fast food, unless I decide to buy some bologna and cheese for sandwiches. That’s usually complimented with a side of chips (the legit kind, none of that liberal “baked” crap) or popcorn or candy or french fries that have been under my desk since last Tuesday, but who’s counting? Not me, and not my stomach either.

If it’s not a sandwich, then a frozen pizza is a strong contender. Wondering which brand to choose out of the abundant options? Kent once wrote an paper for microecon exploring the taste-to-dollar ratios of eight different brands. The man is the closest thing the world has ever known to a frozen pizza scholar. He deserves an honorary diploma from Notre Dame or the University of Arizona. Hell, they give them out to all kinds of unqualified people these days anyway.

This would be considered a victory.

The biggest culinary decision that we make is whether we should cut up hot dogs or sandwich meat in our Easy-Mac. At one point Kent decided he was going to reform his unhealthy ways and bought a bag of baby carrots. He discovered that they go bad if you leave them on the counter for over a week and hasn’t been back to the produce department since. Can’t blame him.

The other night I realized I had seven eggs that I had bought about a month before. Since I love the environment and I don’t want to waste, I decided that I should cook all seven for dinner that night. I had that, chips and queso, and beer for dinner. Sounds disgusting right? Wrong. Bachelors are like commandos in the kitchen. I use what I have and I make a meal out of it. Rachael Ray can kiss my ass, I’m the culinary MacGyver. The meals I make will explode the walls of your stomach and liberate the hunger that was trapped inside, and you know what? They’ll do it just in the nick of time. That’s how we bachelors like to do things. We improvise.

It may not be pretty – in fact you can bet your government-bailed-out pension it won’t be pretty – but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t make a meal.