Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday!

Now that you had so much fun watching women flashing their titties on Fat Tuesday celebrating Madri Gras, it's time to come down from that high and get Ash Wednesday on with. No, it's not a day you're suppose to watch Army of Darkness. It's not that sort of Ash Wednesday. But it is time to mock your co-workers for having a dirt mark on their face.

You're probably wondering what exactly is LENT. I'll tell you. It's the past tense and past participle of the verb "Lend". Now you know and knowing is half the battle. In a nut shell, it's when a person of religious back ground, namely catholic or christian, gives up some thing they do for 40 days and 40 nights. This is suppose to mirror the made up scenario that Jesus went through when he went through the desert.

But to me, the "Self denial" of Lent is funny because it's not difficult or useful or behavior-changing and is basically just a way for children in adult bodies to trick their caveman brains into expecting a reward for their sacrifice. It's very silly to think that some arbitrary day has more poignant meaning of giving things up over any other day.



I know what you're thinking. How dare I say something true about your beliefs! You'll have me know people have held your beliefs since before the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution and that makes them beyond reproach!

But let's get real. Do you really know what you sound like?

"Oh hi, I'm going to fst because I'm a christian. And by fasting I mean I wont eat meat. Well maybe only on Fridays though.. But it can only be fish because that's not really meat... and McDonalds has a sale on Fillet-o-Fish."

No meat on Friday seems like the easiest rule to follow of this whole time period. Given that it's mostly poor families that are more religious, there's typically no meat the rest of the week either.



Think about it. It's as silly as thinking that some magic sky man cares that you gave a thing up. Though I admit that most catholics recognize the absurdity of giving something up for lent.. except for meat on Friday. Why exactly? I have no idea. I would just like to point out that while Jerry's is a Jewish deli, they still serve shrimp cocktails.

Lent is nothing but horse shit. A couple thousand years ago the pope decided that in the leanest time of the year (midwinter) he should trick people into fasting/using fewer resources so he could continue bribing his secret baby mommas without having to pay a premium on dates and spices.



Should I remind you again that the Pope's house is a city. Think about that. A city that is its own country. A country financed in part by cheap dates and spices from the orient and a country that is the size of 17 football fields.. Let that sink in.

I suppose that there should be nothing absurd about making a choice to remove something from your life that impacts it negatively. All it ends up being is some promise that you make to yourself before god. Though I remember the few times growing up what I gave up for Lent and I'm sure that 8 year old me didn't really prove much as a person or to God in taking a month away from Saturday morning cartoons until Easter.



When it comes to appeasing the higher being with giving up something, who do you think you are really impressing with your pussy denials. If you want to practice will through self denial Ramadan is the way to go. And if this really is just abstaining to improve yourself, you're doing it all wrong. Asceticism is for the weak-willed, taking up good habits is much cooler than giving up bad ones.

I just have to laugh when people say they're giving up sweets and slushies for lent. I mean, really? You're going to use the excuse of giving up something to better yourself or sacrifice something in the name of some higher power to give up something so trivial? Yes, it may mean something to you, but let's be honest, how will giving up those things for 40 days improve your life at all?

I know, maybe I could just give the bitterness I have towards religions. But do we ask balloons to give up helium for lent? I think not! It's very simple, you either accept your bad habits or kick them permanently, the reward is not feeling guilty about it and/or a healthier life for yourself.

The Real Super Tuesday

The Real Super Tuesday

Forget that Tuesday in November, the real super Tuesday is today! Why's that? Well, it's a day that many give things up, get fat with, show things off and then to finish it off we celebrate another year of Abe Vigoda being alive.

Fat Tuesday is upon us. In New Orleans it's a party of epic proportions. I was there a couple years back right after Katrina from the week before mardi gras celebration into just a little bit of it. While I'm sure the after effects of Katrina made it a more.... laid back venture, it was still very much a fun experience. I do hope to go back sometime soon. The place was very much an interesting, living, breathing being that was hard to describe and impossible to keep down.



Eating a Beignet at the Cafe du Monde was a fun times. I walked around the remains of what used to be whatever it was before Katrina hit. I mean, I literally got there a couple of months after it happened. Prices were dirt cheap and they just wanted to fill rooms. I got a rental of a guest house equiped with tv and a pool for the cost of a very lower end Hotel room. That was a deal I was more than happy to take.

I'm a little surprised I didn't mention the whole beads and flashing thing earlier. I mean -I guess that's an important part to mardi gras, I think I've seen my fair share of boobs thanks to the internet here. Amazing how much information it could bring you. But the one thing it can't bring you is some sort of video footage of you on Girls Gone Wild. The amount of drinking that goes on during this festive event is off the chart. I'm sure a small country could all die of alcohol poisoning with the amount of booze they serve there.



I suppose I should give you some back story to all this. Since it celebrates the final time for you to be wreck loose before God starts counting down how lucky you'll be. I think that's enough of the lead up, let's talk about the actual meat and potatoes that will be boiling over for another 40 days.

Fat Tuesday also signals that it's only 24 hours till the start of Lent. You know, that crazy religious time of the year when you give up something for 40 days to be clean of your sins. That and you'll see a lot of people with dirt on their forehead on Wednesday.



It also lets me know that it's only 40 days till my birthday and now I need to figure out what others may want for their Birthday, which this 40 days count down really does help me in making sure I get that done in time.

As a side note if you're not Catholic/Christian or know nothing about Lent, you may have noticed several restaurants are heavily advertising anything with fish. Followers of Lent are not supposed to eat beef or poultry on Fridays, but fish and clams are A-OK. Restaurants know this and they're appealing to this demographic right now.


Church attendance may be up. But god damn can people actually dress nice for church anymore?

If you haven't noticed McDonald's shoving the Fillet-O-Fish back into the limelight, then you haven't been paying attention. Same with Wendy's, and places like Long John Silver's and Ivar's are banking on heavy traffic on Fridays. Even when I did believe in some God, I never followed this silly rule. It's like Jews and pork. Not going to happen.

I can see why the religion wanted to ban it. Hell, maybe it was just some sort of mass protest back in those times. Someone passed around an e-mail forward that stated "Hey guys, don't eat fish or beef on Friday" in defiance to high meat/poultry prices. The equivalent of the stupid e-mails you get about protesting a specific gas station company on a particular day to show them a thing or two about charging us more for gas! I don't buy it.



Add in that a lot of the whole restrictions of eating specific things was because they were risky. If you had a pork chop from a pig who wasn't refrigerated properly or treated, you were going to die. Or at the very least contract worms. So it's more of a guide to controlling you through your wacky religious beliefs. I'm not for that. Not even on just one day.

But not everyone celebrates Fat Tuesday. Many Irish folks practice Shrove Tuesday. Which is really a terrible holiday. Unlike Mardi Gras, Shrove Tuesday is about abstaining from everything for the day leading up to lent. The question remains, do you burn out bright for the big lent giving up celebration or do you go with the micks and abstain from enjoying yourself an extra day?

Finally, thanks to my Canadian Club Calender I know that today is Abe Vigoda birthday. Sure enough, he's still alive. I know, a little tough to believe but it's true. You know him best from The Godfather. Most of all, Abe has been on Conan since the early days of the Late show. I'm pretty sure most of everyone would have considered him long dead if he hadn't been on that show so often.

There was a lot of good moments in his cameos. Such as this gem.


Who would have thought that at the fine age of 88 Abe was still alive and well. Many already considered him dead time and time again. Hell, two years after I was born People magazine decalred him dead. Vigoda took this with a comical sense of humor even posing for a photograph showing him sitting in a coffin holding the magazine in a sort of proof of life image.

Last week during the last days of Conan O'brien's Late Night run Abe Vigoda was set free


So run free, Abe. Run free on this, your 88 birthday. Hope you're having fun with it wherever you are in the wild.