What a fine day!  Passed another belt test last night.  Woke up this morning, myriad bruises, everything hurt, and my voice was gone, but I passed.

Today is also the release date of Underworld’s new album.  I’ve been a fan of Karl Hyde for decades now…if there was a “soundtrack to my life,” it would be, surprisingly, probably be written by Underworld.  They’ve been one of the few constants in my adult life.

Six days ’til Halloween!  Shit!

For the English majors: today we’re going to pour some out for Geoffrey Chaucer who went on to his Great Reward on this day in 1400.  Back in the 14th century, where the air was thick with plague and poetry, Uncle Geoff was about to absolutely rock the English language.  He danced on the grave of Old English and came up with something quite new.

Dig if you will this picture: Chaucer, a civil servant by day, a linguistic alchemist by night, scribbling away at what would be his magnum opus, “The Canterbury Tales.”  This wasn’t just a collection of stories; Rolling Stone called it, “a full-on psychedelic trip through the mind of a medieval genius.”  They continue, “With a cocktail of pilgrims, each boasting their own tales as colorful as a peacock on acid, Chaucer has crafted a narrative that dares to expose the raw and raucous humanity of our time.”

The man had balls – he didn’t just dabble in satire: he swam naked in it.  He was the first guy to bring vernacular English into the spotlight.

Cheers.

N.P.: “Smack Yo” – Beltran

suppurate
verb
1. undergo the formation of pus; fester
Etymology: From the Latin “suppuratus,” past participle of “suppurare” which means “to form pus.” Isn’t Latin swell?

Now gather ’round, children (or maybe not, this one could get a bit icky), as we continue to delve into the delightful world of words that describe things we’d rather not think about. Today’s word is suppurate, a verb which, as you’ve just read, refers to the act of forming or discharging pus. Delicious, right?  Here we go:

Here’s why you should know and love this word: most obviously, it has to do with festering pus. Which would be plenty enough reason to deploy the word liberally in your daily business communication.  But wait…there’s more.  Though officially the word is pronounced “supp-yer-ate,” people in the Midwest (and yrs. truly) pronounce it “super ate.”  Yes…just like the franchise of cheap and sleazy motels.  So the next time you’re driving along and hear a commercial inviting you to spend a night at the Super 8 Motel, you should, like me, cackle adolescently.

Picture this: It’s a beautiful sunny day, you’re on a first date at the park, and you’ve just bitten into a tuna sandwich when suddenly, you feel a throbbing pain in your mouth. You excuse yourself, run to the nearest restroom, and are horrified to see that an old wisdom tooth extraction site has decided to suppurate at the most inconvenient time. The sight of it is like the Mt. Vesuvius of oral hygiene.

You rinse and rinse, but the taste of pus mixed with tuna is something you’ll probably never forget. You go back to your date, put on a brave face, and decide to stick to soft serve ice cream for the rest of the afternoon. Meanwhile, your date, blissfully unaware, continues to blather on about her love for, ironically, DIY dentistry. 

Suppurate – a word that sounds like a superhero power but, in reality, is about as far from it as you can get. Use this word with impunity…the average American won’t know what the hell you’re talking about anyway.  Feel superior…because you are.

N.P.: “Go Fuck Yourself” – Roxanne

Art by Tasty Piece,©️ The Safehouse Collection 2022

I’ve also been feeling rather vindicated lately, mostly about stuff that everybody’s bought into, stuff I’ve been saying is obviously wrong for decades.

If you grew up in the 70s like me, your formative years were likely spent being rhetorically bludgeoned about the absolute essential duty of all humans to recycle, and the most essential of that essential duty was to recycle plastics because holy shit are just the worst thing that could ever have happened to our planet…just look at these pictures of all the oceans of the world rapidly filling with plastic. Now look at these pictures of dead fish. That’s your fault if you failed to recycle one piece of plastic. You specifically were killing dolphins by the dozen, and you specifically were going to be responsible for the death of every human on earth due to global freezing if you failed to recycle all plastics. All of this I vociferously dismissed as idiocy when I was nine years old.

Well.

Well, well, well, well, well.

Last month, none other than Greenpeace finally admitted that plastic recycling doesn’t work in as much as it does exactly fuck all to help the planet. Plastic recycling doesn’t work, and, more importantly, it never has worked.

That rather stunning admission from the hippies at Greenpeace was cause enough for another Celtic Bacchanalian Goat Dance, but then the very next day, the vegetarian hippies (who showed up in the mid-70s, around the same time the planet hippies started making their annoying noise), were forced to admit that there ain’t a damn thing wrong with eating red meat, healthwise. You know, as I’ve been saying since I was eight. All previous misinformation was the result of healthy user bias, corrupt hippie scientists, and pathetically shoddy research. Despite all the useless “consensus” of the last few decades, there are “extremely weak links” between red meat consumption and cancer, heart disease, or diabetes. And exactly no evidence of association between red meat consumption and stroke.

Other obviousness to be revealed in another couple of decades: the laughable barbarity of orthodontia, and the stupid cruelty of Daylight Saving Time.

N.P.: “Misirlou (Metal Version)” – Leo

Cruel: Jussie Smollett Will Be Forced To Share A Jail Cell With His Attacker

CHICAGO, IL—People are protesting in the streets today after human rights groups revealed Jussie Smollett will be forced to share a jail cell with his racist attackers.

“This is an outrage!” said Reverend Jesse Jackson. “Not only was Mr. Smollett attacked by hateful racist bigots who want to tear our country apart, but now he has to share a jail cell with them? This is cruel and unusual punishment. This is the kind of thing that happens in our white supremacist country. Send me money!”

Criminal justice watchdogs also revealed that in addition to sharing a cell with his attackers, he will have to share his toothbrush, his bunk bed, and clothes. They expressed worry that this may lead to Jussie Smollet suffering further racist and homophobic attacks from other attackers named Jussie Smollett while in prison.

When asked for comment, Jussie Smollet angrily yelled “This is MAGA country!” before punching himself in the face.

https://babylonbee.com/news/cruel-jussie-smollett-forced-to-share-a-jail-cell-with-his-attacker