It doesn’t? Not even a little bit? Please, I welcome your counterpoint, although I fear it will be insufficient.

Walking Stigmata

What? That gentleman over there? No, of course he doesn’t look like the Pascal Lamb! Well, to start he’s clean shaven! No, he doesn’t look like you. Not at all. His hair is so short! Sure it’s the same color, fine. But still, I maintain that you look completely different, him having absolutely no resemblance to Jesus, the Rose of Sharon.

That’s true, good point. You are blonde and you do have two very blue eyes. It makes sense that Jesus probably didn’t have those two Aryan traits. Nevertheless, I’m going to stand my ground and say that your follicle features bring to mind artistic renditions of the one and only Son of God.

Riddle me this, Christ impersonator: What if Jesus was an albino? Oh, right, sure. Now you bring in statistics. The guy raised people from the dead and gave blind people sight, and you’re going to say that the chances of Him being an albino Jew – who would thus look a lot like you, save the nose – are “astronomically low”?

What was that? Touché, touché. Based on most long-haired modern Israelis, it is likely that Jesus’ hair wouldn’t be naturally straight like yours. I’m going to go out on a limb though, and submit to you the following explanation of your resemblance to One Third of the Holy Trinity: maybe back then, as it is now, it was fashionable to straighten one’s hair for aesthetic reasons. Furthermore, perhaps Ancient Hebrews found it appealing to bleach their hair, just as Americans did about a decade ago.

Well, sir, I beg to differ. I don’t think it’s a far jump in logic at all. Certainly you’re not suggesting that Jesus had a poor fashion sense? That’s what I thought. Excuse me for believing that Christ the Redeemer – He who turned water into wine, mind you – could turn His hair blonde and His eyes blue if He wanted to do so. All powerful, remember? Even so, I still think it looks as though you modeled for the statue of the Good Shepherd that I purchased just yesterday at a Family Christian Bookstore.

Oh, okay. Now you’re backpedaling. So you’re saying He could have, but He didn’t? I guess you’re aware of some physically descriptive Biblical passage that I must have missed somehow? You’re not? Well then, it stands to reason that the Lion of Judah could just as easily look like you as He could look like that Hasidic Rabbi over there. You’re grasping at straws now. Let’s just part ways, agreeing at least on the point that you probably look a lot like Jesus, if not exactly like Him.

I think you’re being unreasonable.

Calling people names doesn’t really belong in a conversation about The Lord, does it? Well you don’t talk like Jesus did, that’s for sure.

Well I wish you would turn that Evian into chardonnay, but if you did I assure you I would not shove it there or anywhere, I would drink it gratefully. Right, then. Good day, sir, and God bless.

Conor and I have speculated about the dozens, indeed hundreds, of possible causes for this spike in traffic (i.e. Facebook statuses being whored out, non-reader friends finally being overcome by guilt, widespread unemployment, tagging posts with things like “Kate Beckinsale Nude!!!!!”, etc).  Wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong.

Nay, dear readers, the answer to this riddle is rooted in two articles which appeared on this site in January.  One was about Carson Daly, the other was about Jason Mraz, both were about the degree to which these gentlemen suck.  If you have not read these articles, allow me to summarize: they suck alot.  Well, as fate and the internet gods would have it, the message of these articles apparently resonated with the teeming masses of hateful Americans who prowl the World Wide Web and has sent them flocking in droves to The Talking Mirror.

How do I know this?  Each day, our stat sheet logs all the search engine terms that bring people to thetalkingmirror.com.  This allows us to see which tags are most effective and provides a window into the souls of our readers.  Some of the most popular searches include: kamma sutra, fetus humor, or some variation of “is my girlfriend crazy” (actual searches: am i a crazy girlfriend, how to break up with a crazy girlfriend, crazy girlfriend came after school, girlfriend went for a drive with ex, boyfriend talks on phone to ex, and the list goes on).  However, hands down the most common searches bringing people to The Talking Mirror are things relating to the life-draining awfulness of Carson Daly and Jason Mraz.

On any given day, up to a dozen people type in things like “Carson Daly is a toolshed”, “jason mraz huge douche,” “carson daly sucks”, and “carson daly sucks bad.”  The next most populer searches are various misspellings of Daly and Mraz followed by “douche.”

This trend is telling of two things: (1) These two gentlemen suck something awful, and (2) Americans have a surplus of pent up hostility when they are getting online.  Don’t get me wrong, I would like to drop-kick Mssrs. Daly and Mraz as much as the next decent American; I just think it takes a special kind of animosity to hate someone so much you take to the internet to discover new reasons to hate them.  And yet dozens, if not hundreds of web-surfers are pausing their daily searches for porn and pipe bomb ingredients to see who else out there shares their sentiments that Jason Mraz is a stain on humanity.

Come on America!  Surely we have better things to be doing – like, for example, declaring bankruptcy, lavishing praise on Slumdog Millionaire, or searching for pipe bomb ingredients.  Do we really need to spend entire afternoons fueling the fires  of Daly/Mraz disdain?  Surely we are more charitable nation than that.

Perhaps not.

That is all.  Nothing groundbreaking or earth-shattering.  It amused me, and I thought it might do the same for you.

p.s. Since I wrote that first paragraph ten days ago, we have amped up our marketing arm.  As of this afternoon, Talking Mirror facebook ads have appeared on over 1 million Facebook profiles.  When you consider that this picture is featured on the ad:

you can better understand my excitement about this number.  Eat it Facebook!  You can’t escape me!

Also, if you see the ad, please don’t click on it.  It costs me $0.60 every time you do.

Have you ever taken a dump that the toilet just couldn’t seem to choke down? I feel like that toilet when I’m forced to listen to Jason Mraz’s scattin’, be-boppin’, skiddlywink warbling. I could be anywhere– walking down the street, in my grandmother’s car, at the TJMaxx– when my ears are suddenly spewed upon. It’s funny that “scat,” the obnoxious jazz-influenced vocal riffing that Mrass-clown utilizes, is also a homonym for droppings, feces, or crap, typically of the animal variety. The latter kind of “scat” is exactly what falls like little black pellets from Mrass-goblin’s mouth. After spending some time percolating in the artistic cesspool of Los Angeles, it is rerouted to the ears of consumers, which then become toilets, which then must choke down the wretched aural blob with a mental flush or two.

Here’s the deal: I just fundamentally reject Mraz’s entire ethos. Honestly, Mr. A-Z is just Jimmy Buffet for Generation Y. It’s cleaned up and made to sound intelligent to the average Delta Phi Kappa bro just learning to play some riffs on the guitar, but at it’s core it’s the same swill. And the worst part is, he’s one of several unconscious Buffet memes; an all-star lineup that includes Jack Johnson, John Mayer, Matt Nathanson, G. Love, Gavin DeGraw, so on and so on.

Don’t believe me? Let’s compare lyrics, shall we? First, some standard tripe from Mrass-hole:

The remedy is the experience.
This is a dangerous liaison
I say the comedy is that it’s serious.
This is a strange enough new play on words
I say the tragedy is how you’re gonna spend
The rest of your nights with the light on
So shine the light on all of your friends
When it all amounts to nothing in the end.

I challenge you, reader: examine the lyrics to the rest of this song and tell me what the hell it means beyond, “Screw it, man. Let’s just chill.” Now, as a fine segue, some lines from a Jimmy Buffet classic, “Why Don’t We Get Drunk (And Screw).”

I really do appreciate the fact you’re sittin’ here
Your voice sounds so wonderful
But yer face don’t look too clear
So bar maid bring a pitcher, another round o’ brew
Honey, why don’t we get drunk and screw

Chorus:

Why don’t we get drunk and screw
I just bought a water bed, it’s filled up for me and you
They say you are a snuff queen
Honey I don’t think that’s true
So, why don’t we get drunk and screw.

You can’t make this crap up, folks. The Sacred Writ mentions the sins of the fathers being visited upon their children. Well, Generation Me of the 1960s must have ravished the soil with a Troy-Bilt tiller of crap to sow the poop crop we have on our hands today. And the ethos is exactly the same: it’s all about the experience, man (or bro or dude or babe).

Lets just drink a lot, smoke a lot, just get absorbed in the music and watch the change happen. Yeah, man. We’re changing things. We’re changing things through the power of music and positive energy. Yeah, bro. Jason Mraz and Jimmy Buffet are so, like, environmentally conscious and charitable. When I go to this concert, I’m making a difference. Don’t bother me with your politics, your organized religion, your book-learning. I just want to live my life, man. I just want to smoke this weed, bounce around like a palsy patient at this show, and have unprotected sex with this chick. I just want to “be,” man.

Get the plunger.

This graphic, slightly nauseating review was penned by Mr. Ryan K. Hodgen.  Mr. Hodgen is a fairly misanthropic malcontent who cannot abide convesations with people possessing less than two Ph.Ds.  He gives voice to our generation’s silently suffering minority: the literary elite.