The Angry Czeck

One day, while watching the evening news with a relative of mine, we were updated with the latest report of a particularly destructive Georgian tornado. One survivor, a middle-aged woman who had lost everything in the storm, was in the process of thanking God for sparing her life.

My relative shouted at top volume, “Go ahead! Pray to God! Where’s your God now!?”

Granted, it’s a pretty legitimate statement to make. (It was also incredibly insensitive and entirely too loud.) A tornado had descended from the heavens and reduced the woman’s home to a pile of broken Tinker Toys. Real life of Job stuff, if you ask the Angry Czeck. Seems like fist pumping and curses were more appropriate than thanks.

The problem with many atheists is that they take God’s apparent disinterest with mankind as hard evidence that a higher power is not in command. An atheist sees a world conspicuously short of miracles and draws the elementary conclusion that a world without miracles is a world without God.

Fair enough. It’s a good argument. But it is the atheists’ only argument, and when you only have one argument, you tend to repeat the argument over and over again, at increasing volume. An atheist’s knob goes to 11.

Sadly, The Angry Czeck is related to this guy.

That is not to say Christians are not without annoying twists of logic. Only a Christian can make a weakness, like a lack of divine evidence, and make it into a cornerstone of faith. For example, if my atheist relative grabbed the tornado lady and personally delivered his high-volume message,  Tornado Lady might have replied, “God works in mysterious ways.”

The Mysterious Ways argument is the biggest pussy argument going today. Not because it is vague and leaves God off the hook, but because it’s usually delivered with such smug conviction, you just want the specter of Robert Mitchum to appear with a bag full of bitch-slaps.

You know, serial killers work in mysterious ways. Nobody prays to Ted Bundy.

But what kills me about atheists is the narrow-minded self-righteousness.

Believe me, nobody finds the fish icon on automobiles more obnoxious than me. I mean, what is that icon supposed to say? “I merge for Christians?” Do you enhance the Blue Book value of a Dodge Shadow if you slap a fish icon on the bumper? Christians tend to imagine themselves as part of a big club. So I suppose the fish icon is no less pretentious then, say, a bumper sticker that screams, “Give Blood. Play Rugby.” At least, that’s how I’ve justified it, and it prevents me from running Fish Drivers off the road.

But the atheist can’t leave it alone. The fish icon, as annoying as it may be, is not an attack. Yet atheist feel compelled to strike back with the Darwin Fish (a fish with legs). How insulting. It implies that either a) if you’re a Christian, then you must be a backwards Creationist, or b) you’re just a big fan of On the Origin of Species.

If you think somebody delivers the Mysterious Ways argument with smug conviction, imagine the look on the atheist’s face when he’s slapping the Darwin Fish on the trunk of his Ford Focus. “Take that, religious nuts!”

Nothing riles an atheist’s rancor more than the threat of prayer in school. The Angry Czeck is a big fan of the seperation of church and state. But if a high school in Texas wants to broadcast a prayer before a football game, who gets hurt? A religious minority (Muslim? Jew?) Atheists? Listen, I can’t even send a Christmas card anymore. (I send ‘Holiday’ cards today.) Now a simple prayer is off limits? If my Jewish and Muslim brethren would like to join me in their particular brand of prayer, the Angry Czeck embraces them.

Atheists chose this battleground because, well, what the hell, right? There’s a man in California, a lawyer, who has decided to increase his own notoriety by throwing his daughter beneath a school bus by claiming that the current configuration of the Pledge of Allegiance has caused her irreparable harm. She’s been emotionally scarred, see, because the Pledge asserts than we live in a Nation under God, and she’s an atheist.

I don’t know how old this girl is, but is she really old enough to discount the existence of a spiritual being? No more than I was mature enough to make Catholicism my belief-brand of choice, I suppose. But at least I was railroaded in private. This man not only adheres his personal views onto his daughter (something we all do, like it or not), he decides to drag her life through the mud with a totally needless piece of legal shitigation. What a dickhead.

Christians are often called out for a high-and-mighty attitude, and not without reason. For many people of faith, pressing personal religious values upon others earns them a spiritual merit badge and a magnetic keycard that opens the pearly gates. Too many times, faith interferes with a quiet lunch or even a midnight trip to the porn theater.

Atheists are just as bad, though. But rather than using picket lines and poorly printed pamphlets, atheists communicate through Hollywood, which finds atheism to be a trendy validation of their sponsorship of violence and vice. In Hollywood, the only religious people who appear on screen are the fanatics with bombs, or the Southern senator with a misguided moral axe to grind. When Mel Gibson makes a Jesus movie, and not a movie where he’s shooting people, he’s a zealot. A religious nut. Some even called him a Nazi. (Unlike many of the people who denounced Gibson as anti-Semitic, I actually saw The Passion of the Christ, you pussies. Yes, it was a bloody snuff film. Yes it was oddly moving and spiritually stirring. But I did not come away feeling that the film was an attack against Jews. True, some Jewish priests were the bad guys. Movies have bad guys. I guess if the bad guys are Jewish, it’s anti-Semitic, much in the way Basic Instinct is anti-gay. But lets say Gibson made a movie about a coven of priests who raped alter boys. Nobody would complain then.That’s entertainment.)

My point, I think, is that fanatics are found on both sides of the spiritual fence, and neither do well in promoting their own agendas. Many of today’s Christians are embolden by the presence of a Jesus-guy in the White House, calling for the heads of liberal federal judges and titty-twisting Democrats into rethinking their stance on abortion and gay rights. That w
ill backfire. In the end, it doesn’t matter what kind of faith you have, Americans don’t cotton to bullies. Christians, long vilified in the news and in Hollywood, are getting cocky, and pretty soon they will be re-portrayed as the abortion doctor killing, backwards crazies atheists have always claimed them to be.

Meanwhile, atheists will continue to make pompous statements like, “Do you have any idea how many wars have been waged in the name of religion?” I don’t. And neither do you.

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I have an incredible threshold for acceptance. I accept that the primary reason for making Iraq the New Puerto Rico was nukes (if I sniff enough gas). I accept the fact that George Lucas fucked up an unfuckable franchise. I accept the French.

But I can’t accept that I must share the road with bicyclers.

Why? My car weighs 3000 pounds. Why must I disignate the same care and consideration to an idiot pedaling a 40 pound toy on a busy boulevard? Who made this law? When did Greg LeMond become a congressman? If it saves me time, can I drive on a bicycle path?

I don’t know many bicycle people, but the ones I do know are nuts. Not a cool nuts either. I’m talking about a leg-shaving, farmer-tan-sporting, no-body-fat-having nuts that doesn’t go over too good at parties.

How these people wield so much power with the Traffic Authority, I’ll never know. Yet I must drive 10 miles per hour on a street maxed at 45 MPH because the bicycler ahead of me can’t handle the bumpy sidewalk. It doesn’t matter if I channel Steve McQueen and manage to maneuver around. While I’m idling at the stoplight, bicycle rider pedals through the red because, hey, I may have to share the road with bicycles, but bicycles don’t have to share the road with The Angry Czeck.

The road signs are the most annoying. SHARE THE ROAD it screams. Like I’m already a felon. Ooops! I need to be reminded not to squish the 14 existing bicycle assholes beneath my tires. I’m so dumb.

Is it just me, or does duping the entire highway system
just make you look smug?

Fuck it. For now on, I’m driving my Big Wheels to work. And you have to eat it, too, sucker, because the law is on my side. You’ll never get to work on time because I’m taking up a whole fucking lane. It’s within my rights. You can honk and honk, but it won’t matter, because you have to SHARE THE ROAD. And you’ll know it’s me because I’ll be wearing tight spandex pants but no shirt. I hate farmer tans. Hell, maybe I’ll make a bicycle fruit pedal behind my Big Wheel, just so he can get a taste of the bullshit he and his healthy hippie commune been shoveling at me. Remember, I don’t need a turn signal because I’m on a Big Wheel. In fact, no road rules apply to me, because I’m riding a child’s toy. I’m completely immune. For bikers, stop signs are DON’T HAVE TO STOP signs. How do you like it? You like it, don’t you?

Are you a man? More specifically, are you a man with a charcoal or gas grill? Do you have a preference between charcoal and gas? Do you wear monogrammed oven mitts? Have you ever received a chrome spatula and fork for your birthday? Do you believe yourself to be the creator of a “secret sauce?” Have you argued passionately in the defense of a rub or baste?

If so, you are probably somebody who barbecues, although if somebody suggested that with those words, you’d be offended. The proper term is “griller.” Listen, it doesn’t matter what you call it. You’re just cooking, Sally. Put on a skirt for full effect.

I’m not above slapping some meat onto my Weber. I just have some perspective. I realize that I am merely doing what I could have done in the kitchen. Except now I have an excuse to drink beer. And my wife thinks I’m cooking dinner.

Except I’m not. See, Meghan is still at work, making beans or toasting bread or setting the table. Not me. I’m standing importantly around my grill, drinking beer and wondering when I should flip something. Meghan probably does more work when I decide to barbecue (my preferred term) then when I offer to make egg sandwiches for dinner.

Don’t bother these guys. They’re grilling.

“Grillers” argue that the act of grilling is far more challenging than applying heat to meat. They talk about baste and sauce as though theirs was developed in a secret bunker at Oak Ridge. Here’s a hint, Emeril: a guy named Kraft makes a decent sauce.

Okay, here’s a wild, uninformed guess from me, but I’m betting 90% of “grillers” claim the secret to their secret sauce is beer. People who make this revelation public always have the same dopey look on their faces – the smug look people display when claiming to be afraid of clowns. (Here’s anther secret: Nobody is afraid of clowns. Nobody. Quit pretending you are.)

.

Beer is not a secret ingredient. If it’s Coors beer, it’s not a secret ingredient.

Don’t say I’m jealous because I have yet to perfect my “grilling technique.” Fuck you. I’m more likely to find something good on the Lifetime Channel than spend time experimenting with rub.

I don’t begrudge you for your little cooking hobby. I just don’t want you rolling your eyes at me when I’m trying to flip a hamburger. And yes, I’m going to pour a whole fucking can on lighter fluid on my inexpertly stacked coals. I might even remove my chicken before sticking a thermometer into it. Why? Because I’m not a Grilling Snob, that’s why. I’m only here to eat.

Meet the “Griller in Chief”

The Memphis Barbecue Fest (What? Not the “Grilling Fest?”) is coming up. It’s a contest much like logrolling or a quilting bee. The only difference is that many of the contestants are completely hammered from consuming too much secret ingredient. I don’t find anything wrong with this, except that some people train all year for this. In fact, the convicts from the Dirty Dozen experience less training than some of the most dedicated “grillers” in the contest.

I’ll bet George W. Bush fancies himself a “griller.”

The modern man doesn’t have a whole lot to cling to anymore. Few social milieus can be claimed as his sole domain. Funny how that man, in his desperation to secure his masculine identity, has embraced the traditionally feminine activity of cooking as his own. I think that’s cute.

Remember when the United States attacked Iraq a couple years ago?

It was wild, man. W pulled out all the stops. First, W used the State of the Union Address to proclaim Iraq the worst in a trio of evil, a brilliant masterstroke that totally cornered the concept of evil as “anti-American.” Next, he forced a miserable Colin Powell to pawn satellite photos of a trailer park as “evidence of a nuclear program.” Poor Colin. He had his best “I-Involuntarily-Ejaculated-During-My-Prostate-Exam” Face going. Finally, when the ignorant UN inexplicably decided to consider hard evidence rather than W’s Christian Intuition, W said “fuck you” and deployed his troops anyway. The French screamed.

Of course, savvy Democrats knew that Fuck Iraq II was less about nukes and more about oil. Insane Democrats broke out the Blood For Oil signs left over from Fuck Iraq I, and soon the Vegas odds on Don Rumsfield cold-cocking a Daily News reporter were about even money.

Eventually, it was learned that the evidence of WMDs was really just a secret list of adult toys Newt Gingrich left in his trousers pocket, and the cries of Blood for Oil grew shriller.

And I was pissed off, man. W lied to us. He LIED. He blamed his CIA Director George “Bent-Over” Tenet for providing “bad information.” But that’s it. W shrugged his shoulders without even saying, “whoops!” Even when a UN report revealed that Iraq hadn’t sported a nuclear program since Fuck Iraq I, W didn’t even flinch. He did, however, use the Patriot Act to secret away American Arabs to Cuba. At least we had that going.

But one fact prevented me from sending a box of sperm to Dick Cheney, and that was the sweet, sweet anticipation of cheap gas. I reasoned that if 1000-plus American soldiers had to die occupying Iraq, then at least we ought to be pumping Arabian crude at 30 cents a gallon, right? Right?

See, here’s the thing: Democrats are emotional teenage girls. You ask a Democrat why he despises W, and 9 times out of 10, this is the thoughtful response: “Because he’s a dumb-ass!”

Sure, technically this argument holds water because I happen to own a couple brass bookends with a higher IQ than our President. Yet the Democrats aren’t going to win elections when the core political base is driving around 1992 Nissan Sentras with an “F the President” sticker on the rear window. Or writing blogs.

It was never about oil. The Saudis have the oil. I love the Saudis. They own the most fucked up nation in the Middle East, yet they have an open invitation to visit the White House. Nine out of ten 9-11 terrorists were Saudis. When an investigation into 9-11 was conducted, nearly 20 documents were censored from public view. It is believed that those documents implicate Saudi Arabia. The sheiks pretend to be concerned, yet do nothing.

Why don’t we apply more pressure on Saudi Arabia to improve human rights (like we do with China)? How come we fucked Iraq’s shit instead of making Saudi Arabia the 52nd state (Canada, of course, is 51)? Why are smiling Saudi princes still making more appearances at the White House than W’s reading-and-spelling coach?

Because Saudi Arabians understand better than anybody that while Americans continue to buy hulked up SUVs, they know that power lies with the gas. Think W doesn’t know this? He’s an oilman. Do you think he wants more solar powered cars? Do you believe he’s applauding the increasing popularity of hybrid cars (which currently represent 1 miserable percent of the total number of new cars purchased in 2004)? Nope. That might not sit well with our ally the Saudi Arabians, chief exporter of oil, headless bodies and terrorists.

I can’t wait for the day when some lucky fucker discovers a way to make cars run on Bermuda grass or Swiss cheese. Can you imagine how the Saudi oil barons would look when the news hit CNN? They’d have the Colin Powell face. Every last motherfucking one of them.

Except it would never be allowed to happen. The genius who builds the Swiss Cheese Combusting Engine would die in a mysterious car wreck. The patent for the design would be purchased by a conglomerate and become buried in a Raiders of the Lost Ark-like warehouse.

You think a billion dollar business evaporates because some happy asshole invents a cleaner, cheaper and more sensible solution? Is this the reason why the evolution of transportation has stymied to a crawl since Henry Ford put the Model T into mass production? After all, the only difference between a Henry Ford engine and a modern Ford engine is that it requires more gas.

To sum up, Fuck Iraq II has yielded nothing for us. Nothing. We still have terrorists. We still have a seething Middle East. And in return, we have dead American soldiers, the unpatriotic Patriot Act and gas prices that make my wallet scream. How will Democrats respond to this in 2008?

Like dumb asses.

Ha, ha, suckers! I’m on steroids, which makes me better than you. Before steroids, people who weren’t pushing me around were thinking about pushing me around. Not anymore. You should see my arms. Huge! You should see my pecs. Huge! My neck, too. I’m typing this post shirtless because I’m so hot.

So far, the only side effect is that my face looks like Robert Mitchum’s in Rio Bravo. And I’m not sure if I have nuts anymore. But you don’t need nuts when you can bench 380. Yesterday, I lifted a Ford Focus over my head.

I used to be a “little guy.” Can’t call me that now, because I am huge. I will stuff a piano down your throat. I can break your jaw! I’m on steroids, bitch. Feel my muscles!

I’m glad that dickless pansies like doctors and school teachers say steroids are bad. Good! More cattle testosterone for me, sucker. I’ll take your girlfriend and make her mine. She will like it. You don’t like it? I think that’s cute. Come here and do something about it.

Steroids are the best goddamn thing that ever happened to me. People respect me now. Especially when I’m punching holes in their windshields, or when I’m sweating on their lunch. My resting heart rate is 220.

Think steroids are “bad?’ Check out this hot pieces of ass.

Mark McGwire is a pussy. He should have told the congressional committee, “Fuck yeah, I took steroids. I’m on steroids right now, bitch. I hit 500 fucking home runs. And I banged your wife. I will tear your head off and drink all your blood!”

Ralphael Palmerio is a pussy. Any man who admits to taking Viagra® but not steroids doesn’t deserve to breathe the same air trapped inside Ken Caminitti’s dead armpit. Get your finger out of my grill, Ralphy. Canseco’s syringe wasn’t the only thing he was sticking in your butt.

Sammy Sosa is a pussy. He pretends he can’t speak English, but I bet he knows how to say, “Now the other cheek, Mr. Canseco.” I think his dick is full of cork.

Hell yeah, I’m on steroids. I love them. I eat them like Flintstones. That’s why I’m breaking bricks between my ass cheeks while you feel your man-breasts bouncing when climbing a flight of stairs. You think I can’t kick everybody’s ass on that congressional committee? They tremble before my power. Pussy committee is more like it.

If it weren’t for steroids, this post would be over by now. Steroids grant me the stamina to write longer. Harder. With more penetration. How do you like it, ma’am? You like that, don’t you?

You know that shit that makes cows grow bigger steaks? That shit works, man. My neck went from a size 16 to a size 22 with three injections. If you don’t believe me, witness the awesome veins bulging from my Adam’s apple when I chew bubblegum. I’m a monster!

Don’t think you want to do steroids, kids? You will if you want to make varsity. You will if you want girls to talk to you. You will if you want to make that smart ass little shit in Geometry II toss your salad. You think that squirrely English teacher will dare flunk you when you’re head-butting holes in his chalkboard? I don’t think so.

I got go get my chest waxed. You better be here when I get back, or God help me, I’ll twist your fucking arms off. XOXO.

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