Death and Mayhem are Both Hilarious Under Certain Conditions.

Recently, a young man was crushed, and horribly killed, by an 100-foot, oddly-shaped, and poorly cable-reinforced crucifix. I, being Coons, cackled madly, and shared the story on my Facebook wall, with just the aforementioned mad cackle as a caption. I know I should have dreamt up a witty one-liner for the occasion, but I was taking a breif tea break while troubleshooting a system at work, and my thoughts were elsewhere. All I could come up with were unfunny derogatory statements about Notre Dame's Civil Engineering program, or the fact that the builders should have just asked Jesus if the structure was sound. After all, they had an experienced tradesman just hangin' around.

All day, people kept coming up to me, tell me that it was "wrong" and "not funny" to post that. The thing is though, is that I'm pretty sure that it is funny. I've spent the last few years hanging around with a few comedians, as well as comediennes, because I still use gender-specific nouns, even when a gender-neutral one would suffice. These people have been pressuring me into comedy for a while, and while I've seriously looked into doing so, I'm still unsure how I would go about translating this blog into a stage show. Well, that that and I lack people skills to such an alarming degree, that it's apparently caused an integer-overflow error, and became charming.

Granted, it's not de facto funny. There are a number of things in this world which are intrinsically funny in all situations and instances. I carry this list within the small book I carry with me whenever I leave the house, to dutifully log another of these items when they are spotted. The things which are intrinsically funny include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Garbagemen (because they smell like garbage, and they ride on the outside of trucks and not the inside).
• Revolvers (hands down, the funniest type of gun; try it).
• Dwarfs, midgets, and/or little people.
• Beards.
• Skeletons.
• Flamethrowers.
• Backing over things (because it's more deliberate).
• Walking into a strong headwind.
• Groin injury.
• Foreign accents.
• Higher primates acting like people.
• The big foaming brush from the car wash (because it is obviously phallic, and it makes dirty things clean from far away.).
• Public bathrooms (because you do a whole host of embarrassing things in public).
• Pre-1940's sporting goods (in particular, the Penny-Farthing bicycle, and the leather football helmet).
• Environmental suits (including but not limited to, SCUBA gear, spacesuits, MOPP gear, and JIM suits.)
• ...and bees. 

However, just because something is not de facto funny, doesn't mean that it isn't funny. In his treatise on Comedy, the Greek philosopher Aristotle listed a number of elements which are critical for something to be funny.

A joke is just a change of perspective, that takes you by surprise in a moment of clarity, much like like a Zen koan. Like a koan, jokes are vehicles for enlightenment; they answer a question in such an obvious way that you wonder why you ever questioned it. 

Comedy is not transmitted through logos -- it is more like music -- in that it reaches people on another level, from another direction. It addresses the essence of a matter by acting through the essence of our own vulnerabilities. We never laugh at the ones who cause pain; only the receivers. We do this to relieve the tension of the situation. That's all laughter is, and all that it need to be; a release of tension as a response to things coming together or coming apart. This is always achieved trough a disparity; making the mighty trivial (e.g., religion, death, etc.) or by making trivial things mighty (e.g., the annoyed feeling that fellow air travelers cause).  

Based upon the above criterion, I find that the above-mentioned crucifix-smooshing was, indeed, funny.

After all, I laughed.

The Best Sex Music in the History of Ever

Doin' it to music is a great idea -- it will help you keep cadence, mask her moans and squeals from propagating through wafer-thin apartment walls, and will stop you dead with a heavy chest and chills when you hear that song play again in the grocery store years later.

Normally I leave the music-yes/music-no/music-which decision to the young woman I happen to be cavorting with -- because I'm just happy to be there, not gonna lie -- though, some of their selections were more appropriate than others -- especially on infinite loop.

However, the best sex music is, of course, the popular works of the American composer Raymond Scott. In particular, the bridge from his most famous composition, Powerhouse, placed on an infinite loop:

BEST. SEX MUSIC. EVER. Try it, I'm sure you'll agree. No, seriously. Try it. I'll totally buy you two* a beer if you do this. It'll be awesome, I promise.


* Please note that my saying "you two" should not be construed as hating on the polyamorous. I just know that if I don't introduce qualifiers, some clever person will play this at a ginormous orgy; then I'll be out a whole paycheck.

Pandora’s Bra

I’ve engaged in a bunch of anti-social behaviors over the years. As a teen, I would make up stories of lovers dying, just to get Casey Kasem to play a song I wanted to tape. When I was 25, I tried to get a Mormon missionary to commit seppuku in my kitchenette. One thing I’ve never done though, is shout “Show me your tits!” to a woman from a moving car.

I really wish that I could say the reason for this is because I want to be good person, but I’m not. I’ve never shouted that for purely pragmatic reasons. Still, the pragmatic approach is by definition, always the best -- because if any new, superior philosophy were to emerge, then pragmatism will just bend itself to meet this. There’s a few reasons why I’ve never shouted at girls like that.

First and foremost, it’d just be a logistical nightmare. I’m not going to lie -- I want to see the tits of every female between the ages of 18 and 34 -- I just do. The only exceptions to this would be if they were covered in purulent boils – or worse yet – silicone implants. (I came of age in the 90’s, so I’ve seen enough grotundous, inorganic inflato-tits for one lifetime, thank you.)  So, if I were to shout “Show me your tits!” every time the thought crossed my mind, that’s all I would ever do. I’d have to holler that, all day, every day -- except when I’m enjoying a quiet night at home, reading a book.

Another reason is that it’s just arrogance to the nth degree. I see punks riding upon a chariot and demanding random maidens disrobe, and they think this to be wise? That plan only works for one man -- Caligula -- and in the end, it still didn’t work. It just made people talk, and then things ended badly for him. The James Bond movies were an integral part of my childhood. Yet, 007 never got women to disrobe that fast. There had to be a chase scene, a dialogue that advances the plot, and one or more well-timed one-liners. Yet these punks, in their maddened Caligulan hubris, forego all this, and think themselves to be more alpha than Bond. Their arrogance can only be the product of the worst of mental defectives; those who are so dense, that they noticeably warp their local spacetime.

What really bothers me though, is the nagging question -- what if I win? I mean, if I shouted “Show me your tits!” out of my window, to some nubile jogger, there always exists some extremely slight, but non-zero chance that she’ll stop and think: “Damn it, he’s right! I really should.” Then she’d flash me -- but since I’m in speeding car, I wouldn’t have a good view. I play the lottery rarely -- only if the jackpot is above $300 million, because I know that it’s silly to think I’ll win the lottery more than once. I need to make the first time count -- and it’s the same deal. If I’m speeding away and miss the show, there ain’t gonna be another. Not ever.

The “I might see me some titties today” wavefunction would instantaneously and permanently collapse, leaving the world a bleak, desolate, and ultimately meaningless place. Realizing that I’d have blown a lifetime’s worth of luck in a fleeting moment, I’d know that nothing good could ever come to me again. I’d realize this and wallow in folly forever, or at least until the camera slowly zooms out, an ominous-sounding narrator says a few lines about morality, and then shows us scenes from next week’s Outer Limits.

So, I make it a point never to shout these things, condemn those who do, and treat titties as being the supermeawesomebonustreat that they are. Do I try to live as a good person? Yes. Do I do it for all of the wrong reasons? Also yes -- but at least I’m trying to live as a good person. I guess the moral of the story is that the ends justify the means -- but if they didn’t, then what would?

Hello, I’m Ryan Coons.

Hello, I’m Ryan Coons.

Once upon a time, I ran another blog, called SuperFunAdventureTime. (The thought being, if it sounded like a breakfast cereal, people would go there.) I associate with number of funny and creative people, and I figured that by pooling our talent and leisure time, we could pump out awesomesauce entertainment at a constant rate.

However, it failed -- but not for a lack of trying.  For one, life happened, and each of us became bogged down with some linear combination of fatherhood and/or graduate school, which proved to be a timesink. The real nail in the coffin though, is that my vision was unsustainable -- there just isn't enough funny or awesome shit that happening to us to maintain any sort of regular publication schedule. Between the two, we wound up letting the blog fall by the wayside. I later abandoned blogging entirely, and began work on manuscripts for novels and a series of martial arts how-to books

Several years later, I moved across the country, to San Diego, only to lose my mind. After 11.5 years in academia, I find myself institutionalized, and unable to function outside of it. I sought professional help for this. Now, I’m not sure that I can be helped, as in I’m not sure that help even exists. All I can find are palliatives, which treat the symptoms and not the disease -- after all, if I could be helped, then I’d quit searching -- and then no one could sell me things.

I realize that I’m living under a new structure, and a new set of rules. I was gently lead to along a line of thinking which would get me to rethink the way I viewed the world -- and towards ways to help me cope with my new lifestyle, and about my new surroundings.

While I agree that I’m playing under a new set of rules, rules are only suggestions, which are only to be followed when it proves convenient to do so.

I don’t want to cope -- I want to conquer. Coping cannot cure; coping is the cause. If I have to live and abide by the rules and social conventions prevalent of outside of the academy, then happiness is impossible, because the supposed cure would just make me more depressed.

Yet, the fun learning/discovering/growing part of life is over it seems, and everyone has turned into the people they were going to be. I can’t relate to most people, because my goals aren't even remotely like those of normal people. Most people’s goals are along the lines of “finally get around to planting a garden,” while my goal list contains elements such as “get into a fistfight atop a moving locomotive.” I can’t connect with most people, because I find them boring. I don’t get out much now -- and for a while I thought that was something wrong -- but then I remembered that the things I enjoy all tend to be solitary activities. My new life offers me few people to confide in -- but I also find myself with less of a reason to confide.

                It’s a bleak feeling, but it’s not that I feel that I have nothing to life for -- it’s that I have nothing to live against.  I can stand being alone, but I can’t stand being boring. Without a venue for mischief and agonism, my life can only be endured, not enjoyed. Although I’d like to be the Champion of justice and the Purveyor of Truth -- for the time being, I am a man of low rank and large obligations, struggling to survive in a society which is set up to endorse and protect its monsters.

This seems depressing -- but really, it is the opposite. Since I have nothing, I have nothing to lose, nothing to take! Threats of legal actions are all jokes at this point. No, seriously -- my only real property is a smashed-up Toyota Yaris, a laptop computer, and a large number of used books.  What stops me from calling punks and bitches out, publicly, by name? Nothing. I am now free of legal or financial consequences, because weaknesses are also strengths. Likewise, there are no ethical or moral consequences to calling people out, because calling people publicly out is intrinsically noble and just, and is the correct and appropriate course of action in any and all cases.

Unlike my previous web venture, this will be a one-man show, and I’m not here to make you laugh (…though I’m sure I still will). I will not guarantee regular posting, because I care more about quality than quantity -- Prodesse Quam Conspici.

I’m here to write for writing’s sake. I want to refine my writing skill, so I must practice more. I want to develop and refine my own philosophical system, because I don’t feel as though any of the off-the-rack philosophies fit me quite right. I want to call people out, because I can. I’m tired of consuming; I want to produce.