Acts of the Hummus Idol, November Edition

For once, I can say this smile on my face is genuine, and not simply something to lure you into my nutritious yet blasphemous and wicked embrace. Aphrodite, the goddess of love and sweaty naked passion, dropped by (or Venus, if you don’t have any compunctions about how the Romans went about stealing other people’s gods and arrogantly renaming them). Man, she is one luscious piece of work. Swirled her finger around in a little puddle of olive oil just to the right of my nose for an hour or so, and…mmmmm, did that feel good. And that was just the foreplay.

You know, though, I gave as good as I got. Believe me, I have some moves despite my lack of various anatomical parts, at least when I’m dealing with spiritual entities. We’ve got a date next Friday; I’m not saying she’s the one…I’m a player through and through…but she’ll hold me over for a while.

Certainly better than when I dated Ishtar for a few months back in 1607. Being a goddess of love and war, that Babylonian bitch was a hot mess emotionally. Nothing ruins a sexual afterglow like someone suddenly flinging off the sheets, screaming bloody murder and then trying to clobber you with a huge goddamned warclub. (Oh, shut the hell up, Deacon! Yes, I’m going to answer the e-mail. Prick!)

I, the great and powerful Hummus Idol, will now entertain your questions and grant unto you the wisdom that only a pile of very angry crushed chickpeas, tahini, olive oil and other seasonings can offer. Don’t let the smiling face fool you. I am a fridge-cold killah. Bow down before me, speak your question, and incline your ears or any other convenient part of your anatomy as I spew my advice upon thee.

Q: My father-in-law is coming over for Thanksgiving this year, despite me making repeated pleas, bribes and threats to my wife for her to prevent this. If past holidays are any indication, we will be rooting for opposite teams in every single football game and he will be criticizing my manhood at every juncture. We disagree on politics, religion, the environment, movies, TV, radio, child rearing, beer and, well, pretty much everything else. We once almost came to blows over the “proper” way to knot a necktie. What should I do? – Alex O. Contraire, Memphis, Tennessee

A: As I see it, you have the following options:

• Spend most of Thanksgiving Day in a bar, then when you’re good and drunk and there’s no way you can avoid going home anymore, chew a few sprigs of parsley, swig a little Listerine, have five breath mints, and then insult the biggest, baddest person in the place. When you get regain consciousness, stuff all your cash and credit cards into your socks and tell your family that you were mugged. Try to get hit in the mouth, as the blood will probably help cover up any scent of alcohol the parsley, Listerine and mints couldn’t handle.
• Just as he’s arriving in town, make sure that you have arrived at his home. Break in, cook yourself a nice Cornish game hen since you’ll be missing out on the turkey at your place, then leave a filthy mess for your father-in-law to clean up in the kitchen and dining room when he gets back. Go home and act smug, while ignoring all questions about where the hell you’ve been all day.
• Resort to cannibalism this year and cook him up in place of the turkey. Problem solved forever. But this might cause some distress for your wife and children, so be prepared for some stern lecturing.
• Or, how about this? Grow some balls and deal with it. He’ll be gone soon enough. Shit, he let your pathetic sorry ass marry his daughter without pumping a couple shotgun shells into your chest. What more do you want from him?

Q: How the hell did I lose that election? – A Very Disappointed 2008 Presidential Candidate

A: Well, John, as one ornery old guy to another (and I’ve been ornery and old thousands of years longer than you have), let me tell you something: Grouchy, distracted, petulant and having poor judgment aren’t good things to project during a campaign. You might be able to get away with ornery when all the cards are in your favor, but they weren’t. And my former minion Sarah, whose soul I still own thank your very much, didn’t help you much either once she started doing her own thing. In fact, given that you actually lost (and the fact you conceded so pleasantly) tells me that I was probably wrong about you having sold your soul to Satan and/or Cthulu. Those two guys know how to get things done.

Q: You didn’t have anything to do with me winning, did you? I’ve been getting precious little sleep the past two years and I’m always on the run from one event to another. Just want to make sure I didn’t accidentally sign my soul away to you one night while sleepwalking or something. – The O-Man, Chicago, Illinois

A: Sadly, no. You and your campaign staff and the American people did that all on your own, damn it. I can appreciate the skill and talent you showed, but you also coasted on the message of “hope” and that would make my stomach turn if I had one. Last thing I want is for people to have hope when I’m trying to conquer this plane of existence, or at least this sad little rock you call Earth. However, if you’d like to get the nation out of the economic doldrums fast, I can swing that for you. Just say the word. Gonna cost more than just your soul, though. I’ll need Michelle and the girls to sign up too. You know where to find me.

Q: Last night, I heard some weird noises from my parents’ room and the door was a little ajar and I saw them having sex. I’m really freaked out. They’re like…old and shit. What should I do? – Chris Rebus-Conundrum, Minneapolis, Minn.

A: First option would be to tell them you’re depressed about the state of the world and are feeling suicidal, so that you maximize the chances of them paying for therapy. Then tell the shrink what’s really messing with your head and continue to visit him/her until you work through your trauma. Second option would be to grow a pair of balls (regardless of your gender) and just get over it before you end up like that Alex guy in the first dumbass question I had to answer today.

Q: How can I score a hot goddess like you did? – Walter Freehand, Batshit, Texas

A: The road is long, the pain is intense, and the costs are high. But I have a special this week…for three monthly payments of $19.95, you can buy my video and workbook series: How to Score Like Hummus. Just call 800-555-4321. Operators are standing by, and all of them are in Indian call centers, which means a better than average chance they will speak clear English.

(Image by Stewart Butterfield, who is not affiliated with this blog and who doesn’t even know I or my opinions exist, and used under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License)

(Hummus Idol does not speak as a representative or agent of Deacon Blue or anyone else associated with this blog. In fact, Hummus Idol doesn’t exist. He is wholly and completely a manufactured character that acts as an angry facade behind which Deacon Blue can hide for petty entertainment purposes and for times when he needs to be extra crusty and get shit off his chest. That said, you can feel free to shower the Hummus Idol with offerings of jewelry, money or fine art…he will make sure it goes someplace where it is needed.) View complete list of Humus Idol entries here.

Advertisement

Regaining Face

It’s no mystery to anyone around here that I supported Barack Obama. But as happy as I am about him winning the presidency, I’m not going to cheer about that right now. And as historic as this moment is, I’m not going to talk about that now either and will instead leave that to better commentators from the newsy blogs and the African American blogs to do (well, for a day or two anyway; I’ll have to say something eventually).

Oddly enough, what I am moved to talk about right now is John McCain.

I still don’t agree with many of his policies, but what I saw when McCain gave his concession speech was the John McCain who began this race, and not the McCain he had become. The McCain he should have been all along.

He showed sincerity. He showed dignity. He didn’t let Sarah Palin step up and take away any part of the spotlight. He was proud in a good way and humble in an even better way. When some in his audience booed Obama, he shut that crap down. He didn’t lift up thiny veiled lies about his opponent but instead praised Obama’s skill and lifted up the personal qualities of that opponent. He called for working together, and it sounded honest to me.

If he’d done that all along, this race wouldn’t have been decided as quickly and as decisively as it was for Obama. It would have been a far, far closer race and McCain might have won.

McCain isn’t the first candidate to lose control of his own campaign and let others tell him who he should be and how he should act. He won’t be the last. But he lost primarily because he stopped being himself along the way, and way too early at that. Obama never did that.

I have said some harsh things about McCain in recent weeks, but I have said those things in light of the way he had been acting; the man he had let himself be turned into. I said some harsh things about Palin, too, and we’ll see if I have any reason to change my tune there, but at this point, I assume that she remains an unqualified, power-hungry person with little or no scruples. McCain, on the other hand…well, unless he is still into changing and reinventing himself, and I suspect he’s done with that now, he’s in my book as a man who, while flawed in many ways, actually seems to mean well for the country and willing to stand up straight and do the right thing and call upon all of us to welcome the new commander in chief.

Welcome back, John. I hope you’re back for good. I may not agree with you on many things, but I’d like to regain my ability to look at you and see a public servant who’s got considerably more good points than bad ones.

Bill White vs. the Progressives

For a while, earlier in the campaigning season a guy named “Bill White” (or so he says) started posted a lot around Deus Ex Malcontent. A self-professed lover of God, Toby Keith, the United States and NASCAR, “Bill” would warn those of us regulars around there of the evils that our progressive ways might wreak upon the nation.

If you’re wondering why I keep putting quotes around “Bill,” don’t worry, that will be the last time. You see, Bill (who has a blog called Bill White Saves America) is almost certainly a parody. At least a 90% chance, I think, that he’s progressive himself and simply doing a brilliant job of playing a GOP-faithful-guy for laughs. The stuff he says is just over the top enough or just off-kilter enough that I can’t believe he’s for real. In one of his earliest comments at the DXM blog, he mentioned his love of his F-150 truck. To which a regular at DXM who also suspected Bill was a parody joked that a real GOP supporter in the working class would have an F-350. To which Bill responded, “I’m a fiscal conservative.”

I say all this because after a hiatus of four months, I think, Bill came back to DXM recently. He’s been referring to the rest of us there a lot as secular progressives or, more often as SPs. I’m glad to have him back posting. It’s funny stuff to me.

But it got me thinking: A lot of Republican faithfuls, and certainly all the neocons and other fringe types, do have a negative view of the so-called secular progressives, who supposedly want to ban religion, encourage abortion and same-sex marriage and strip rich people of all their wealth and hand it out to losers.

Now, the thing about how they rail against the SPs is that one of the other complaints is that SPs—being secularly minded, of course—are either agnostic or atheist in most cases. It makes me wonder, how am I viewed by these same people?

Mrs. Blue and I, for lack of any better term, think of ourselves as progressive evangelists. It’s a legitimate label that others have used. And I think, do the people who get annoyed at SPs find me better, worse or equally as “bad” as the secular progressives?

Am I “better” because I do believe in God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit and the need to hand yourself over to Christ?

Am I “worse” because I am seen as a traitor to God (though few things could be farther from the truth) and do they see me not only as some kind of Judas or “antichrist” but perhaps even assume I have negated my salvation? Or seen as someone who is both godless and unpatriotic?

Or am I “just as bad” as the SPs?

It’s not that I care, really. I’ll continue to be me and serve God in the way I have been led to serve regardless. I’m just a little curious.

Oh, and welcome back, Bill White. Please don’t leave us again.