Bastard role models: Tezcatlipoca

Tezcatlipoca was the troll god of the Aztecs and would periodically destroy the world, mostly by trolling other gods so hard they deleted fucking everything. In other words, the hero we deserve and need.

>ywn be as /fa/ as tezchadlipoca

Tezcatlipoca was so dedicated to trolling, he created the world by using his foot as bait to lure in Cipactli, a giant fucking crocodile fish space monster, which was then rekt and turned into the world by the combined gods of the Aztecs. He gave up his own foot just to make a Sims game he would then spend the rest of eternity fucking with and destroying, like a cross between a Bond villain and God.

One time, Tezcatlipoca thotpatrolled Chalchiuhtlicue, goddess of water, making her cry so much it flooded the world, forcing everyone to turn into fish in order to survive. No reason, he just liked doing things like that.

Tezcatlipoca in The Warriors (1979, colourised)

The other thing Tezcatlipoca is known for is that every year a Chad tier Aztec would be elected to LARP as him for one year leading up to his feast day, when he would be ritually killed and his heart offered up to the troll god. During this year he would get mad puss. Considering the alternative was to be a peasant til you dropped, this was a pretty sweet deal.

Bastard Role Models: Inky the Octopus

I hope and trust you've all caught up with the most important story of recent times. No, not Lying Ted Cruz stealing Colorado from The Once And Future Don; I'm talking about Inky the Octopus and his daring escape from captivity to rejoin the ocean.

Inky's in your cereal.

Inky is a better role model than 99% of people. More impressively, he's a better role model than 99% of fictional characters. Take the movie Finding Nemo, for example. Nemo, like Inky, gets caught and put in captivity. But Nemo needs his father and mentally special sidekick Dory to come get him.

Not Inky.

Inky's escape makes The Great Escape and Shaw Shank Redemption look like child's play. Moreover, they make whatever you're doing with your life look like Seed of Chucky. Could you squeeze your whole body through a 6-inch pipe? You can't even keep up going to the gym, you fat fuck.

Inky f'taghn!

Let's solve Jack the Ripper!

As you know, I am a fan of Jack the Ripper and associated mythology. I read The Final Solution (which is the one about how the Freemasons did 9/11 to prevent Bongland from finding out the royal family are degenerates), and became fascinated by the stories of Saucy Jacky and his poor spelling.

In this article I will give a token gesture to srs study by omitting the stupidest theories, like Alice in Wonderland author Lewis Carroll did it.

The Crimes

I will be using the "canonical" murders as the only ones that count, those being the murders of Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes (the double event), and Mary Jane Kelly. Some people like to think Jack started with Martha Tabram, only later developing his signature style. Others consider Kelly to be someone else's kill due to certain variations on the old MO. Still others contest whether the Ripper was responsible for both parts of the double event, since Stride was not gutted nor strangled. Jack's body count may then be as low as three, if Stride and Kelly were each killed by someone else. Dropping three bodies would only just make Jack count as a serial killer, but in defence of his reputation, I think someone else doing a murder like ten minutes' walk away from his on the same night seems like a pretty big coincidence, and if his alleged correspondence is to be credited, he did tell his dear old boss that he'd do two in one. The objection to Kelly's inclusion is plausible but would require us to identify the copycat as well, and the method of murder bears enough similarities given the difference in location and time available that we can call it Jack's if we want to.

The Usual Suspects

William Henry Bury

Suspected for similarities between the stab wounds found on Polly Nichols and the ones he put in his wife. "Jack Ripper is in this sellar (sic)" was also found written on his door. Hilariously, after turning himself in, and before they hanged him, he would make sulky innuendos to the effect that he was the Ripper, but stopped short of saying it outright, just to spite them.

David Cohen aka The Leather Apron aka Nathan Kaminsky

According to this theory Nathan Kaminsky was mixed up with formerly confirmed Ripper Aaron Kosminski, who was just a window-licker, and was briefly committed to an asylum under the name David Cohen, which was at the time like "John Doe" for Jews. This is a plausible story, but not much seems to be known about Kaminsky otherwise.

Aaron Kosminski

Still a popular subject, Kosminski was institutionalised at the right time for when the murders stopped. He was sometimes said to be violent, and was definitely schizophrenic, because he thought voices were telling him not to eat food that people gave him, and eat bread from the gutters instead. This has nothing to do with his ripping or otherwise, but it does prove one of history's first accounts of someone trolling himself.

Michael Ostrog

Generally ruled out these days, Ostrog was arrested about once a week for petty theft. Such a congenital fuckup was unlikely to avoid capture for the more srs crime of murder.

Nichols

A Midwife Did It

This theory, apparently raised by Inspector Abberline himself* postulates that a midwife could have done the killings as she would have been trusted by the victims, have a reason to be out late at night, and be able to explain blood on her clothes due to her work. This is a cool ass theory, but there's no direct evidence.

Francis Tumblety

Chiefly suspected for the size and sharpness of his moustache, Tumblety was a quack with a perhaps apocryphal affection for collecting uteri and a sizeable case of unwarranted self-importance. It was said that he might have sought revenge on prostitutes because he found out that his wife had been one, which is a fine origin story, but of debatable veracity. He was in England at the time of the murders but fled to America after the end of the canonical murders, and liked to use aliases like a villain in a Sherlock Holmes story.

Dr John Williams

A doctor who seems to have crossed paths with a Mary Kelly and possibly other victims in a professional capacity. He had a knife that matched the description of the murder weapon and was generally a bit of a dick. This is all circumstantial though. It probably wasn't him.

Francis Thompson

A poet who was homeless by the time his work became popular, Francis Thompson studied medicine and liked to write about murdering women, and is thought to have been in Whitechapel at the time of the murders. A great deal of circumstantial detail makes him seem a plausible suspect, but he was left-handed, whereas the Ripper is understood to have been right-handed.

Chapman

Alois Szemeredy

Implicated due to his commission of a similar crime in Buenos Aires, Szemeredy was convicted and committed to a loony bin. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any evidence that he was in London at the time of the murders.

Robert D'Onston Stephenson

A much-travelled former surgeon hospitalised in Whitechapel at the time of the murders, Stephenson wrote about his own Ripper theories involving killing in a cruciform pattern for black magic purposes, and spoke at such length and in such detail on the killings that people started to suspect him. This theory does require him to have sneaked out of the hospital where he was faking illness, which is farcically absurd and therefore stupid.

James Maybrick

Allegedly wrote a diary all about being the Ripper, which is generally agreed to be a hoax but makes him to this day one of the most discussed suspects. No one will remember you for anything.

Jacob Levy

A Jewish butcher and formerly committed nutter, Levy fit some of the details of the police profile, and may have been observed with Catherine Eddowes by his neighbour Joseph Levy shortly before whacking her. Then again, as we know, the police were useless when it came to keeping track of Jewish names, so maybe it was Joseph that did it. Oy vey.

Stride

Severin Klosowski, or George Chapman

This fuck was named by Abberline himself after he was convicted of poisoning his wives some time pursuant to the five Ripper murders. The problem is that poisoning is a very different way of killing someone as compared to strangling them, slitting their throats and gutting them.

Hyam Hyams

Loopy tune committed to Colney Hatch for stabbing his wife. Few details match eyewitness testimony.

James Kelly

Another cuckoo fruit and nut bar banged up for stabbing his wife, Kelly was sought after the Mary Jane Kelly murder but whether he was even in London is unknown. Rozzers quickly gave up on him and he spent much of the rest of his life waiting around trying to be arrested, and they didn't even bother. That's what you get for being a 19th Century schizoid man.

George Hutchinson

Famous eyewitness who claimed to see Mary Jane Kelly with the Ripper shortly before her death. Some people think he made up his account and some think he did the murders. There's no direct evidence, but people like the character. Claimed to have spent all his money going to Romford, which may be the most suspicious thing about him.

Eddowes (censored for your comfort and convenience)

Carl Feigenbaum

Executed in New York, serial murderer Feigenbaum was connected to the Ripper based on an alleged confession to his lawyer that he suffered from a madness that compelled him "to kill and mutilate the woman that falls in my way". Feigenbaum had been a merchant sailor and the theory goes he would have alighted at the London docks, whacked a hooker or two, and sailed back to Germany, leaving Abberline himself and the rest of the Keystone Kops running round in circles looking for someone who wasn't there. This is a good theory because it's funny, but relies on gaps in the shipping records. Feigenbaum could have been anywhere at the time of the killings, and it's known that the lawyer made up a bunch of bullshit to connect him to other murders around the world that had nothing to do with him or didn't even happen.

Joseph Barnett

Mary Jane Kelly's ex was raised as a suspect on the basis that he resembled eyewitness accounts and might have had access to the room where she was killed. It has been suspected that he may have written the "Dear Boss" letter which introduced the name "Jack the Ripper", and this "trade name" may have referred to his work with fish. Some also believe he only killed Kelly, using the Ripper murders as a cover. This is plausible, particularly as he was observed to be around her in the days immediately prior to her murder. However, this theory still leaves the OG Jack unaccounted for.

Montague John Druitt

Seemingly considered a suspect on the basis of suspicious innuendo, Druitt became an hero shortly after the killings, providing a possible explanation for why they stopped - if it was him. No direct evidence supports him as a suspect.

Someone Else

It is very possible that it was someone else entirely. London is very big and lots of people live there, and Whitechapel at the time was a crowded slum. It may be that the Ripper is someone everyone has overlooked both then and now. This idea isn't taken very seriously by Ripperologists because that would be history cheating, and an unwinnable game is a broken game, and should be scorned.

Kelly (everyone's favourite)

Elimination

I believe out of the suspects presented here, the only likely options are Bury, Kaminsky, Tumblety, Levy, Barnett and Someone Else. The most compelling case against Barnett hinges on his relationship with Kelly, which inclines me to think if he were guilty it would be of the Kelly murder only. If that were the case, Bury, Kaminsky, Tumblety or Levy could have been the original Jack. A lot of the case against Tumblety rests on hearsay, and there is not enough information to confirm the Kaminsky/Kosminski switcherooni, which leaves Bury and Levy the most likely candidates for the original Ripper. Both are good, but Bury closely resembles the FBI profile. He was confirmed out all night every night there was a murder, and he fucked off posthaste as soon as the heat intensified. He even had items reminiscent of trophies taken from the victims, like the rings missing from Chapman. And he had butcher experience, just like Levy.

The cases against Kaminsky and Levy are plausible because of the paucity of detail which surrounds them. Knowing more might implicate them to a greater degree or rule them out entirely. The case against Bury is strong because of positively determined facts. Bury is therefore the most likely Ripper, and the one who shall be starring in my next opus, "Whitechapel!: A Musical Comedy Extravaganza", starring Neil Patrick Harris. Look for it.

Think you know better than me who Jack the Ripper was? Leave a comment, butt head.

*In Ripperology, Abberline is always referred to with "himself", because he was clearly very important despite failing to catch the killer. If you don't call him "himself", you will be excommunicated from Ripperology.

Saws: http://www.casebook.org/suspects/

The Poughkeepsie Tapes!!!

Thought you ran out of good horror movies years ago? Never seen a good found footage movie after The Blair Witch Project? Under 6 feet tall? Then you might just be a disgusting manlet that should be exterminated from the gene pool.

The Poughkeepsie Tapes was never released, lending credence to the conspiracy theory that Hollywood is this bad intentionally and scuppers anything good on purpose because Hollywood hates you. This theory is true, but fortunately you can probably find a copy on line. The first version I saw I immediately realised this was the horror movie I had been missing all these years, but the uploader CUT THE GOD DAMN ENDING OFF. Anyway, it was really good. WATCH IT.

For those of you PEASANTS who don't know, The Poughkeepsie Tapes is about a serial killer in New York State who seems to be loosely based on Ted Bundy (who even gets a shoutout in the movie), the Zodiac Killer and the fictionalised Henry Lee Lucas from Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (like whom he switches up his MO to confuse everyone). He videotapes all his kills (for he is in the 90s, I think), and wears this beaky mask thing just for jolly wouldn't you?

But perhaps the most interesting part of the movie concerns what I'll call his favourite victim. I won't give away what happens to her, but it's quite unlike what happens to most characters in horror movies, and confers a note of poignancy which makes the whole experience more interesting. Watch The Poughkeepsie Tapes, and sort out your life, in either order.

I literally looked up how big you have to be to be a giant.

<4'10" = midget. 4'11" - 5'11" = manlet. 6' - 7' = normal. >7' = giant.

However, you must also check your BMI to make sure you're not a fatty.

<18.5 = underweight. 18.5 - 24.9 = normal. 25 - 29.9 = overweight. 30 - 39.9 = Siamese twins. >40 = Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.

The category of "obese" has now been replaced by "Siamese twins" because based air lines make fat monsterpeople pay for two seats when they fly, which means that they are legally two people.

Did you like these science facts??? Leave a comment if you want more.

Album review: LIE: The Love And Terror Cult, by Charles Manson

Hey folks it's that time of year again!!! The time when I review an album of music for your listening pleasure. Today's album is a bit of a classic, yet sorely overlooked by the music press due to its singer/songwriter being involved in some interesting side projects. Charlie "Jesus Christ" Manson was a hippy who auditioned for the Monkees and squatted in one of the Beach Boys' houses, before breaking away from show biz to develop his own sound. I used to own his live album too, but I sold it because it sucked balls. It was recorded in a prison and the main instrument was the toilet flushing in the background. But LIE: The Love And Terror Cult, an album released to help fund his trial expenses, is his real artistic statement.

Sadly, Charlie's image was a little too unorthodox for the mainstream charts.

The album starts with "Look At Your Game Girl", which would letter be covered by the Guns and Roses. This sets the standard that will be maintained throughout the artist's oeuvre, in which the lyrics start off coherent and flatten out into a repetitive drawl like something a crazy wall-slapper would say over and over. He then lurches into "Ego", an uptempo meditation on Freudian theory with a nice string break for variety.

In fact there's quite an impressive variety of sounds on this album, though almost all anchored to this cool-ass chunky guitar sound. Charlie's vocals are similarly varied, as he tries on different personae on the various tracks. "Mechanical Man" he sings like a mechanical person of some sort, and relays the sad story of his pet monkey who died, although this may not be entirely autobiographical.

Charlie also lets the Family girls chime in on "I'll Never Say Never To Always", which sounds exactly like the kind of slightly-off nursery rhyme type melody they used to put in horror movies in the 70s, so maybe Charlie invented the trend.

The production is a little rough around the edges, but that's good because it allows Charlie to spread out his ideas, which often seem like sketches and half-finished musings, but are always tuneful and intriguing.

It's a shame Charlie didn't pursue his music more successfully, because you could slip some of this stuff into a playlist of late-60s standards like Buffalo Springfield and Jefferson Airplane and Crackerjack Fuckface* and you'd never know. In a parallel universe somewhere Charlie is remembered as a rock star like Jim Morrison, instead of a crazy-eyed cult leader who cut a guy's ear off and his hangers-on killed people.

9/10 very good album.

*This is not a real band.

In defence of hair metal

In this article I struggle to articulate why, contrary to everything you've been told, hair metal is great and people who don't like it are communists. For the purposes of our article "hair metal" includes glam metal, sleaze rock, hard rock, and anything else I want it to, because it's all the same thing.

Lita Ford, or Sebastian Bach. Pic by Zoran Veselinovic.

1. Hair metal gives you priapism. Priapism is when you have a boner that lasts longer than nature or common sense would ordinarily allow. Exhibit A are these lyrics from Dangerous Toys:

Sport'n a woody, when you're walkin' by

Sport'n a woody, when your titties fly

Sport'n a woody, rippin' my fly

Sport'n a woody, till the day I die

As you can see, in addition to some of the most beautiful poetry ever committed to song, this represents an enormously long time to be presenting with a hardon. Note that the title is "Sport'n a Woody", because hair metal loves the -'n formation. You wouldn't want to write "Sporting a Woody" and look stupid now, would you?

2. Hair metal bands know no fear. Not only does Mötley Crüe routinely shout at the Devil, but Dokken actually scares Freddy Krueger. Nikki Sixx is mostly famous for dying of a heroin overdose, waking up, and going home to shoot more heroin.

3. Everyone had to be hair metal in the 1980s, including classic rock acts like Aerosmith and Alice Cooper. This means that if Jim Morrison had survived longer than is cool, he would have sprayed his hair and sung about dicks. I think we can agree this is definitely something that should have happened. Furthermore, "bad ass" 90s metal bands like Pantera and Alice in Chains used to be hair metal before their big breaks, generating endless lulz.

4. Also called "cock rock". Bands included Cycle Sluts From Hell and Faster Pussycat, and Danger Danger, all of whose songs had repeated one-word titles, like "Bang Bang" and "Dicks Dicks" (maybe).

5. Gave the PMRC (sort of the 80s version of SocJus) fainting spells over their lyrics. Dee Snyder hilariously trolled the retards by revealing that the song they thought was about sexual torture was about a trip to the dentist, giving us a good idea of how stupid the people presently whining about video games are going to look in a few years' time.

What's your favourite hair metal band??? Does it matter??? If a train leaves the station travelling at 45 degrees, how long does it take for Suresh to find x???

Bastard role models: Lee Ving

Lee Ving was the lead singer in Fear. Fear is a band about beer and hating people. Fear is awesome. They have such varied and interesting material as "Let's Have a War", "Fuck Christmas", and my personal favourite, "New York's Alright If You Like Saxophones".

Fear probably laid the groundwork for such sonic pioneers as Anal Cunt, and such intrepid bloggists as Pat Bastard and the Spurious 5. Everyone likes Fear.

Go away.

Bastard role models: Dave Wyndorf

You're looking for the one who fucked your mom? It's not him.

Dave Wyndorf is the guy from Monster Magnet. Monster Magnet is so rad. Dave Wyndorf can wear sunglasses all the time, even though he's from New Jersey. Dave Wyndorf reminds us of a better time (the 90s), when everyone looked like The Dude and no one gave a shit. Dave Wyndorf shares a habit of taking his cues from Marvel Comics characters with fellow bastard role model Dr Octagon. He coined the phrase "what would MODOK do?" (WWMODOKD), and really, this is a very good question. Remember when comics didn't suck (the 60s)? Me neither. Not because I'm not that old, but because I got Alzheimer's.

Monster Magnet videos were also very good. They looked like music videos back in the days when rock bands could afford to make real videos, instead of standing in a warehouse or a hipster bar in ironic suits. Monster Magnet rules a bit.

Dave Wyndorf is my role model because he doesn't afraid of anything. He likes to write about drugs, not going in to work ("Powertrip"), and being based as shit: "I cut off my own head/I don't need it where I'm going". Like everything in the 80s was repurposed from the 50s, so everything in the 90s was repurposed from the 70s, and Monster Magnet is no exception, because it's Sabbath plus Hawkwind plus a bunch of trippy-ass Marvel retro cosmic superwank. Dave Wyndorf's lyrics capture a very specific type of person: the indolent intellectual who crashes planets into one another while he lies on the floor in a bedroom full of Heavy Metal magazine posters, weed paraphernalia, and UFOs. I'm sure everyone in the 70s and 90s was like this, and it was awesome.

Thank God It's Friday The 13th: 13 facts about Jason

Hello campers! Let me tell you a story of a young boy who overcame deformity and retardation to become one of history's most beloved mass murderers. His name was Jason, and today is his birthday the day after which his biopics are named. This contains spoilers for all the Friday the 13th movies, if such a thing is even possible.

1. Jason wore six masks over the course of the original series. In Part 2 he wore a bag on his head, which led to him falling off a stool and getting kicked in the nuts because he couldn't see properly. In Part 3, he took his first hockey mask from a guy named Shelley, whom he whacked. This mask lasted until Part 7, weathering an axe blow and a boat propeller before getting pulled apart by Discount Carrie. They even buried this one with him, just in case he needed it when he rose from the grave in Part 6, which was very considerate of them. Knowing how attached he was to his mask, it's fortunate that in Part 8 the very first boat to come along and wake him from the bottom of the lake had one on it. That one was lost in the sewers of New York when he dissolved in toxic sludge and turned into a child (yes), but then in Part 9 he was just back with a new mask. In Part 10 he got upgraded into a cyborg for some fucking reason, giving him a new and shiny mask, and in Freddy Vs Jason he just woke up with a mask on because fuck it.

   

   Axe sold separately.

2. Jason can only be killed by whatever plot bullshit comes into play, but can consistently be revived by electricity, as shown in Parts 6 and 8. This is handy, as it means you can jump start your Jason just by shoving his pinky in a wall socket.
3. Jason suffered from hydrocephalus as a child. That is why his head is swollen and weirdly shaped. All the kids at Camp Crystal Lake bullied Jason for his appearance.

   

   Strangely, the camp counsellors sing Kum Ba Yah even when there are no kids around.

4. In Part 9 Jason is revealed to be activated by a Mini Boglin that lives in his heart and possesses people. This was discovered after he was blowed up by the FBI (yes). Like the sludge turning him into a child in the previous movie, this was deemed so stupid it was never mentioned again. Freddy Vs Jason took the same approach to Jason going to space in Jason X, making an unbroken trilogy of movies that were too embarrassed to acknowledge the one before them.
5. In Part 2, Jason lives in a shack in the middle of the woods. This shack has an indoor toilet, which suggests Jason is an adept plumber, like Mario. If the douchebag kids had not let Jason drown as a child, this indicates that he would now be fixing your pipes, and probably making more money than them.

   

   Jason's toilet. There's probably a toy of this.

6. Also in his shack is a shrine to his dead mother, in which her head is the centrepiece. This means Jason took the head after Alice cut it off in Part 1, and nobody thought it was strange that they found a decapitated body with no head at the murder scene.
7. Kane Hodder declared that Jason would not kill a child or a dog. While this is consistent with his portrayal in the four films in which Hodder starred, it makes the scenes in 4 where Jason chases after Tommy kind of strange. Rewatching them, we can only conclude that Jason wanted to tickle him.

   

   Warning: a noogie from Jason can cause skull fractures.

8. Parts 1, 2 and 4 are actually good movies.
9. Jason's ability to regenerate makes no sense and was clearly just made up as the series dragged on and got lazier and lazier. However, it allows for the hilarious scene in Jason X where they try to explain why he was frozen: they literally couldn't execute him.
10. Jason is the only horror icon to make a Final Girl visibly pee herself (Part 2).

    

    Don't lie, you would have too.

11. Jason can kill people with everything from a weed whacker to a party horn. He is also strong enough to punch a guy's head clean off. What this means is that he uses weapons only for the lulz, a fact which is supported by his swapping out weapons constantly for no reason.
12. Jason has been missing an eye since Cory Feldman impaled him through it with his own machete. After having both his eye sockets gouged out by Freddy in Freddy Vs Jason, he is later seen closing an intact eye, meaning that he can totally regenerate eyes, he just doesn't.
13. Jason's personal theme song is "He's Back (The Man Behind The Mask)" by Alice Cooper. This song is so 80s it will literally spray your hair.

Did I miss anything??? 8 years of school??? What am I doing with my life?????

Bastard role models: Sun Tzu

Sun Tzu was an awesome bastard during the "Spring And Autumn Period" of Chinese history, because in China, Summer doesn't happen. Sun Tzu is best known for his book The Art Of War, which is about trolling your enemies. It includes descriptions for dealing with lolcows, such as "If [your lolcow] is angry, Disconcert him. If he is weak, Stir him to pride. If he is relaxed, Harry him. If his men are harmonious, Split them". The book is also padded with the bleeding obvious, like advising you to run away if you are heavily outnumbered. This proves that Sun Tzu, just like you, fudged and padded his way to a passing grade on everything he did.

The Art Of War also contains built-in protection for the author, by saying "One can know Victory And yet not achieve it". This means even if you fail, Sun Tzu's ass is covered.

Pat Bastard's Top Ten Most Bastardly Songs!!

Put this on your play list. Be sure to play it backwards until you can hear my voice. I'll tell you what to do.

1. Anything by Anal Cunt (the best band in the world).
2. "Now It's Dark" by Anthrax. This is the anthem of the best character ever from Blue Velvet: Dennis Hopper. In the song he sings his best lines from the movie, such as "don't you fucking look at me" and "I am ONE FUCKING WELL DRESSED MAN!", a sentence only Dennis Hopper can yell at people.
3. "No Man's Land" by Alice Cooper. Alice Cooper has many songs that could qualify, like "I Love The Dead" (about fucking corpses), "Sanctuary" (asking everyone to fuck off so he can sit in his room), and "Blue Turk" (about fucking corpses). But instead I went for the best bastardly song in his whole storied catalogue, which is about the time he abandoned his gig as a mall Santa to go fuck some chick.
4. "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" by the Beatles. This is where Paul McCartney temporarily went insane and wrote a song about a guy who murders everyone with a hammer. That's why, even though John was always the one who gave Ringo shit and trolled religion and let Yoko record music, Paul was secretly the best bastard in the group.
5. "It's Gonna Get Worse" by Catherine: a song about how much you suck.
6. "I'm Destructive" by Dr Octagon. This song starts with everyone's favourite Juvian gynaecologist murdering someone with electric wires. He then asks how the listener would react if he violently assaulted them and their pets. Finally the song devolves into rambling such as "Like a green red blue reindeer, dead lying down with a fawn/Copulating, having sex/Mating with a baboon with buffalo wings/Hahahahaha". This is awesome, and great.
7. "Bastards on Parade" by the Dropkick Murphys. This is all about an asshole who pissed away his life, but now he's going to own it and be awesome. This is an inspiration to the rest of us who are presently awful.
8. "Let's Have A War" by Fear. "Let's have a war/So you can go die". Sufficient said.
9. "I'm Sick Of You" by Iggy Pop, in which the legend himself follows someone around for nearly seven minutes telling them he's sick not only of them, but of their mom and dad, for extra spite flavour.
10. "If I Had" by Eminem, in which he reveals that even if he had all the money in the world, he'd just spend it on stupid shit to spite people. I know how he feels, and I'm a 60-year-old man with Crohn's disease.
11. "Lovey Dovey" by Local H. This is where Scott Lucas reveals that he hates it when his friends are in relationships that make them happy, and derives glee from watching them fail.
12. "Last Caress" by the Misfits: definitely the best song of all the time, this is where Danzig has something to say, and it turns out it's that he whacked your baby.
13. "Run Shithead Run" by Mudhoney. This was written for a movie soundtrack. They put the lyrics in to force the filmmakers to use the instrumental track instead. They didn't. Hilarity ensued all over the place. Easily the best song ever to play at the gym.
14. "Beat On The Brat" by the Ramones, about wailing on a child with a baseball bat.
15. "Waving My Dick In The Wind" by Ween, about the titular activity.

I haven't provided any links because I'm so lazy I've basically melted, but you've got YouTube, so go listen to the scientifically most bastardly songs ever.

Bastard role models: Basil Fawlty

Everyone knows Basil Fawlty, the lovable hotel owner who violently beats his staff, locks guests in cupboards, and otherwise lays down the law. But did you know he was a Korean War vet who killed four men? Basil Fawlty has a magic wound that flares up if he needs to cover for something. This is exactly how an injury should be employed (see Stephen Hawking).

Basil, like all of us at a certain point in life (birth), derives joy only from intense greed and Schadenfreude (this is Germanic for Bastardry). Look at how his little eyes light up when he gets to screw someone over. I do the same. I dance around my room with glee. Malice, hostility and bile are Basil Fawlty's motivators. They are guaranteed 40% better than coffee (source).

Basil Fawlty's greatest and best moment in bastardry is when the guy died in the hotel, and he was trying to get the body out. Basil Fawlty hid in the laundry basket and escaped, leaving everyone to deal with the fallout of a great big corpse all over the lobby. Basil Fawlty is my hero. I wish I could drop a corpse on everybody and escape. I'd start a new life in France, where they love me.

Bastard role models: Edmund

WARNING! This post contains spoilers for several 500-year-old plays.

Edmund is the best character in King Lear, a play about a king who goes fucking insane and starts talking to trees.

Edmund is the original bastard. He coined the famous "Now gods, stand up for bastards" line. Edmund is the best character in all of William Shakespear's Sister. First he tells his idiot brother that their dad is coming to kick his ass. Then he cuts his arm and cries to the dad to make him think the brother attacked him. Then he spends the rest of the play banging King Lear's daughters behind each other's backs. Edmund is so good at playing other people that he even manages to get the two sisters to whack each other before him. Even though he ends up getting killed, it probably works out for the best, as King Lear was written in Shakespear's Sister's goth phase, meaning everyone who ends up living wished they hadn't.

Edmund is by far the most successful villain in the whole Shakespear's Sister oeuvre. Claudius never got to enjoy himself because he was always worrying about fucking Hamlet killing him, and Iago got caught in the end, and lived out his days as a prison bitch. Edmund is to Shakespear's Sister villains what the Joker is to Batman villains: even when he loses, he wins.

We can all learn a lot from Edmund: firstly, if your family are dumbasses, you can exploit them for personal gain. Secondly, always use protection when you sleep with a chick named Gonorrhoea. Thirdly: if you give two of your daughters names that sound like diseases, those are the ones who are going to plot against you. Fourthly: Francis Bacon wrote all Shakespear's Sister's albums. Fifthly: 91% of Shakespear's Sister is codpiece jokes. Sixthly: Shakespear's Sister invented ska.

Bastard role models: Dr Octagon

Dr Octagon is a pink-afro'd, green-skinned, skull-faced gynaecologist invented by stark staring batshit loon and genius Kool Keith. The good doctor dresses up as a woman so he can fuck his patients, and spends the rest of his day cross-breeding animals and conducting experimental surgery on everyone. He is so absent-minded that he lets a horse wander into the hospital while he's not looking ("General Hospital"). He cheerfully admits "I have no tools, my hammer's done, my drill is broke", but don't worry, as you probably won't even make it to examination, since anyone who's been waiting since the morning while he's banging female patients gets summarily dismissed ("Waiting List").

His 208-year-old uncle is half-shark-alligator, half-man ("Halfsharkalligatorhalfman"). He also has a song about himself, "Dr Octagon". Not only is it named after himself, but it doesn't make any sense and is full of William Burroughs-esque phrases like "gamma ray toilet" and "Government chemical voodoo man miracle/Super disease". All this might sound like cause for concern, but don't worry, as he assures a "Dr. Ludicrous" (possibly himself) that he "[turns] into a octopus", which presumably puts an end to his medical career. On the other hand, he was later seen in a sequel trying to save the universe from a gorilla. It is not known at this stage whether he was still an octopus at the time.

Because he is fucking bonkers, Kool Keith periodically kills off Dr Octagon in a fit of rage, generally at the hands of his other persona, Dr Doooooooom (all his personae are not to be confused with the incredibly similar-sounding Marvel Comics characters). Dr Octagon is my role model for several reasons: he's a time traveller, he loves his work, and, like Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees, he can just come back to life for no reason. These are all things I aspire to, and you should too. I wish we could time travel back to the 90s, when Dr Octagon was there. He'd tell me what to do.

Bastard role models: Grey Seer Thanquol

Grey Seer Thanquol's contributions to bastardry are many and varied. Thanquol is a Skaven (rat-man) from the city of Skavenblight, in Skavendonia, in the Games Workshop Warhammer Fantasy setting. I like Grey Seer Thanquol, not least because he's blatantly The Brain from Pinky and the Brain on hard drugs. He is most well known for his brilliant plots being defeated at the last possible minute by the evil Gotrek Gurnisson and his pet man-thing Felix Jaeger, but his antics have taken him from Kislev (Poland/Russia/Czechoslovakia) to Lustria (South America) and Hell Pit (Birmingham).

Among his many admirable traits including Warpstone addiction (think red Kryptonite for everybody) and running human specimens through a giant maze (payback for white rats in real life), Thanquol is a master of the art of scrolling revisionism. This is the process, common to modern political parties and ideologies, by which defeats can be recast as victories, inconvenient allies as enemies, recent enemies as noble allies, and your own mistakes as the treachery of any nearby underling of sufficiently low status in the hierarchy to blame it on. This must be a virtue, as it informs 100% of our foreign policy, especially with regard to the Middle East. Think about it this way: if scrolling revisionism weren't a virtue, then our leaders, media, and ideological gurus, both left and right, would all be liars, incompetents and charlatans from head to toe and back to front. So, you see, it must be good to scroll.

Thanquol's contempt for any and all life makes him an ideal leader. He successfully captured an enemy tower despite only outnumbering them ten to one, and had his army burn down half a major city before escaping, leaving his bodyguards to die with the promise of "inevitable victory". OK, so he's a complete bastard, but let me ask you this: do you see someone capable of such reckless optimism failing his next interview? And isn't that why the upper echelons of our society are filled with that thing that always rises to the top? You know what I'm talking about.

Bastard role models: Tony Soprano

WARNING: This post contains MASSIVE FUCKING SPOILERS for a show you should DEFINITELY HAVE SEEN by now.

Tony Soprano is the gold standard to whom all bastards aspire: he conducts business from a strip club, smacks his son upside the head, and saved money by giving his daughter a car for a present he'd extorted from a degenerate gambler.

Some people think Tony isn't really a bastard, because he cares for his family. Which is true, except he tried to smother his mother to death, fucking killed his nephew, cheated on his wife with two Russians including one differently abled, and loudly announced that he wouldn't get a vasectomy because his son was too shitty to be his male heir, in front of his son. Tony is an inspiration to bastards everywhere.

He also mastered the art of positioning himself against even worse people, so if you were watching he even got you on his side. The fact that nearly all these people came up through his organisation is a minor detail, easily ignored. What sets Tony apart is that everyone rooted for him for seven years, even knowing about his murdering ways. I can't even get people on my side when I forget to flush.

The moral of the show is that you might as well be a fat, violent, addictive, antisocial personality, because everyone else is an asshole anyway. Even if he did get whacked in the final scene, he still had more fun than you.

Bastard role models: Jabba the Hutt

My role model is Jabba the Hutt.

Some people think Jabba the Hutt is a vile gangster, but I think Jabba the Hutt has many good qualities that make him suitable to manage the Tatooine underworld and be my role model.

Jabba the Hutt managed to earn respect and live in a giant space palace despite two very significant handicaps: he couldn't speak English, and he was too fat to move. He also showed his willpower by seeing right through Luke’s Jedi mind trick, which is essential for good management. Jabba the Hutt was also an equal opportunities employer: his staff included pig-faced orcs, that guy with the tail on his head, Salacious Crumb, a blue elephant and many more.

Jabba the Hutt also took an active role in preserving the landmarks of Tatooine, like that giant mouth in the desert. Jabba the Hutt kept it well fed with his prisoners. How else was the mouth going to sustain itself? Did it just wait for space camels or whatever to wander into it? That’s just stupid.

In conclusion, I think we should all be more like Jabba the Hutt. He’s a conscientious employer, cares for the environment, and knows how to accessorise his slave girls. I wish Jabba the Hutt was my dad.

Have you heard the good news about Braco?

Braco, known as the Gazer, is a Croatian man who stares at people. He is way more popular than most of the artists in your music library, he has a following all around the world, and he never speaks in public.

Braco's gaze is said to have the power to heal, but it is not known by whom, as Braco states he makes no claim of any healing power resulting from his gaze. This means that thousands of people all around the world pay large fees to see a man stare at them who claims to have no special powers at all. On the other hand, his website warns that:

• Pregnant women are not allowed to attend after their third month of pregnancy due to the intensity of the energy.

• People with illnesses are advised to follow the recommendation of their doctor before and after attending a gazing session.

So, according to his own website, Braco claims to have no power, but may cause complications in pregnancy, or disease. This individual is richer than everyone you or I know put together.

He is an inspiration to us all.

ZOMFG new Jack the Ripper theory!!!

A few years ago, I published an article about the then-current Jack the Ripper identity. I have no idea if this theory is still popular, or if it is now widely agreed to be nonsense (but it's that one), but it got me thinking about the true identity of the Ripper, and I've come to a shocking conclusion.

"A Study in Scarlet", the first Sherlock Holmes novel, was published in 1887, marking the first appearance of the popular TV detective (Dr Spock). Shortly afterwards, in 1888, the Ripper struck.

Why wasn't Sherlock Holmes, the best detective in London's history, successful in catching the killer? Indeed, I contacted the Metropolitan Police Force in a dream I had, and they denied any record of working with Holmes at all on the case. Fans of BBC ITV's Sherlock Holmes will be aware that the police, in the guise of Inspector Gadget of Police Squad!, always turn to Sherlock Holmes to help them solve their most important cases. Yet where was Sherlock Holmes during the Whitechapel murders?? Coincidence??????????????????

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I can therefore reveal, for 100% truth, that Sherlock Holmes himself WAS the Yorkshire Ripper.

Case closed.