13

I could have saved this for a Friday, but instead I decided to just do it for this particular blog. Aside from the sun, moon and stars, oh, and wolves, the number 13 has significance in every single culture across the world. In Hinduism, a feast is prepared on the thirteenth day of the dead. Oddly enough, there were thirteen people at the Christian Last Supper (Judas being last), as well as the Norse Banquet (Loki being last), not to mention my thirteenth birthday. But who gives a shit? Apparently a lot of people. Superstition leads people to believe this number has more significance than any other. They’re wrong, stupid, and piss me off. I hate them.

No one really knows how it all started, this is true, but I can tell you of the Thirteen Club. It was Friday the 13th, 1881 at 8:13 p.m. when William Fowler invited 12 other guests to dinner in room 13 of the venue. They walked under a ladder, at amongst piles of salt, and thirteen-million other things that were supposedly bad for you. These clubs sprang up all over North America and five future presidents joined their ranks. They did not believe in the ridiculous superstition of unlucky 13. In a cruel twist of fate, none of them survived and it is a documented fact that all of them are dead today. Ironically, the 13 stars of the 1983 film Diner all lost their careers within a thirteen year span. Okay, Steve Guttenberg never had a career.

Fear of Friday the 13th is called paraskevidekatriaphobia or frigganshuthefuckuphobia. Now don't get me wrong, I was a kid once, and I have seen every Friday the 13th film, but unless you're being chased by an undead psycho with a hockey mask and machete, well, nothing to worry about. Right? A study done by the Dutch concluded that accidents on Friday the 13th were fewer than other Fridays, presumably because the Dutch are less intelligent than Americans (which isn't saying much.) In contrast, a British study said the exact opposite, but did not rule out how many of the Brits were driving on the wrong side of the road. Right hand side, idiots.

Even more annoying are people who pretend like the number 13 is lucky. It's not. Colgate University, where they make and study new types of toothpaste and have a rivalry against Crest College, was founded by 13 men with 13 dollars and 13 prayers and 13 articles, blah, blah, blah. There is a huge list of sports celebrities who have worn the number 13 (none of which were the best at anything). The United States had 13 colonies and plasters 13 all over our symbols and currency, yet we're in a recession every 20-30 years. There was also Apollo 13, considered unlucky by many, but they made it back from fucking space, where no one is coming to get you, so I think that is pretty lucky. Serves you right for sending actors into orbit.

In conclusion, I would just like to say that 13 is the age when you become a young man according to somebody. It is also a film about two slutty jailbait junkies. Let us not forget the Glenn Danzig written/Johnny Cash composed song, either. Now taking everything you have learned here, you should be well equipped to go out into the world and disregard the number 13 as just another number lacking any significance whatsoever. If not, well, you're a dumb ass.

Contemporary Christian Music

You’ve been mauled by a Bengal tiger (not the football team, because they can’t maul shit), your heart beats slower and slower, while no amount of adrenaline can help you escape it’s clutches, despite what you learned in Sunday school. As you feel what’s left of your body start to tingle and go cold, calm comes over you. You see a white light at the end of the tunnel. Unlike all those douches in the scientific community, you know this is in fact good enough evidence that at the end is heaven. Despite all the times you walked past those annoying bucket holding bell ringers at Christmas and the fact that you knocked up the preachers daughter and paid for her out-of-county abortion and cheated on your pre-calculus test, etc. etc. etc. you have reached the pearly gates (oddly made out of steel from nirvana). You are judged and accepted to the afterlife, for the sole point of Christianity is forgiveness, and for once you agree, it is divine.

Inside, you are overcome with warmth, love, peace, and there is grandma, making fried chicken and mashed potatoes, as grandpa sits, smoking his non-cancerous pipe and reading the paper he never could in life. Dad pops out from underneath the hood of his old Ford Bronco, smiling now that the transmission is fixed. Mom whistles off in the distance, while she feeds the birds in the back yard. Your sister throws a water balloon at you, and while now drenched, you are not angry at all. You’re like a kid again, no worries, no anger, frustration, nothing to make your day go wrong, or your afterlife. Then Amy Grant comes over an ethereal PA. You question where you actually went.

I’m not knocking religion here. I’m knocking Contemporary Christian music. First, let me compile a list of famous Contemporary Christian artists:

Amy Grant.

Second, let me compile a list of their accomplishments:

Married Vince Gill.

As you can see from my in-depth research, there is a strong correlation with Contemporary Christian musicians getting famous by marrying Vince Gill. As an experiment to test my hypothesis, I took the Oliver sisters, Janis and Kristine, allowing the former to marry Vince Gill and not play Contemporary Christian music, while the latter was not allowed to marry Vince Gill, but allowed to play Contemporary Christian music. Janis Oliver never got famous and apparently faded from even the dimmest of streetlights once replaced by Amy Grant. This research proves my findings.

With this research in hand. I question why anyone wants to play this garbage, let alone listen to it. When I get laid I’m usually thinking about who I am screwing, or Eva Mendes, and God/Son of God comes in dead last until she mentions him (which is why I never rule out sex with a mute.) When driving to work, I think about what exit I’m going to take, going to McDonalds to get a number 9, and stopping at Shell to play the Powerball. Until I win that Powerball, I’m not thinking of God/Son of God. When listening to music, I want to hear some good guitar, with a good beat, filled in with a warm bass, and some lyrics that make me think. I don’t want to hear Amy Grant.

My version of heaven is much as described in the bible. I sit upon a throne, and four naked, female angels sit around me, and… whatever else is in the bible, also female and naked. Hell, even Amy Grant is in heaven with me, naked, of course, and mute to boot. In closing, I would just like to say that I hate Contemporary Christian music, unless sung by naked, female angels.