Post from: Submerge Magazine

The 2012 Presidential elections are just around the corner, but you already know that. Unless you’ve been hiding out in your doomsday shelter for the past four years, you’ve watched the Republicans squirm in their seats, cry like babies and demand that they be put in charge. Well, their chance is finally here as the Republican primaries are officially under way.

Voters have already spent months smelling each candidate’s shit, trying to see which one’s stool contains more corn and less terrorism. At this point, we’ve heard the policy positions (and the lack thereof) and talking points. We’ve witnessed the hand shaking, baby kissing and back peddling. And yet, do we truly know these would-be giants?

In an effort to paint a more complete picture of our next president, I did some digging into the pasts of each remaining Republican candidate. With my supreme journalism skillz, no detail was left unturned. I have dug into the cores of these men, and now I share what I’ve found with you.

John Huntsman has secretly accepted the fact that he won’t be President of the United States, but he has not yet given up on New Hampshire. His third-place primary finish in the Granite State made Huntsman believe that he can convince New Hampshirites to secede from the Union in 2012. If successful, Huntsman will name himself Supreme Leader of New New Hampshire and he will rule until his death.

Did you know that Rick Santorum has a secret past? Santorum was left at the doorstep of a Muslim couple as a baby. Mr. and Mrs. Leekee named their new son Anile. In his early twenties, Anile had a falling out with his parents as he felt that Islam was not strict enough on women and too accepting of homosexual values. Anile threw on a sweater vest, changed his name to Rick Santorum and put the whole mess behind him for the rest of his life.

Who needs life when you can be a machine? Mitt Romney’s systems were first initialized thousands of years ago on the planet Cybertron. Back then, he was known as Romnemus Prime and he was the keeper of the Creation Matrix (or “Allspark” as the teens call it). He gave life to thousands of machines; at least he did until he fell under the influence of the Decepticons and was banished from the galaxy.

Romnemus Prime crash-landed near what is now Boston. Some MIT grad students discovered him about 100 years later. The students reactivated his systems and began teaching Romnemus Prime how to be human-ish. When the training was complete, he thanked the school by changing his name to Mitt.

Not to be out science-fictioned, apparently Ron Paul is a time-traveling, Nazi scientist. In 1945, Paul built and successfully tested a time-traveling zeppelin filled with racist newsletters. Arriving in 1997, Paul snuck across the Mexican border and began distributing newsletters in Texas. His blend of racism and fiscal conservatism really spoke to the people, and before long he was elected to represent Texas’ 14th Congressional District.

Rick Perry used to be on death row. He faced the electric chair in 1985 but somehow managed to survive the experience. Tanned and salt-cured like beef jerky, Perry was left with no prior memories and little actual education. Perry was accepted to Texas A&M immediately on a full scholarship and eventually graduated Magna Cum Laude. When asked today to name his proudest moment, Perry would likely answer the day he got his “Magnet Cum Ladle.”

Despite being pumped full of electricity, Perry has endured. When faced with adversity themselves, others, like Newt Gingrich, haven’t been so lucky. Gingrich was repeatedly dropped on his head…as an adult. Newt has an adult baby fetish and his bulbous frame has caused him to slip out of a few arm cradles in his day. Each blast to his massive baby head caused poor Newt to flip policy positions and forget who his wife is. I looked into whether this was also the reason Gingrich is such a dick, but it turns out he has just always been that way.

Given the nature of these shocking discoveries, I have no doubts that their publication will change the outcome of the 2012 presidential election. The Republicans have their work cut out for them if they hope to make one of these magnificent bastards our next president.

*Relax, it’s a joke dumbass.

Post from: Submerge Magazine

Terra Lopez of Sister Crayon will be hosting all-ages live music nights at Broadacre Coffee (1014 10th Street) starting on Friday, Jan. 27, 2012. “I’m looking forward to it, and I think this city needs more all-ages venues,” Lopez recently told Submerge in an e-mail. “I want to host my favorite local and non-local acts in an intimate setting where the bands play a different set than they normally would, say at a bigger and louder venue.” She also noted that the shows will always be cheap, never more than $5. The Jan. 27 bill features Exquisite Corps, Garrett Pierce and a special DJ set from Lopez and Sister Crayon band mate Dani Fernandez. Doors open at 8 p.m. Keep an eye out at Facebook.com/broadacrecoffee for future shows and events.

-J.Carabba

Post from: Submerge Magazine

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-J.Carabba

Post from: Submerge Magazine

Post from: Submerge Magazine

Post from: Submerge Magazine

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As if 2011 didn’t have enough notable deaths, Kim Jong Il kicked the proverbial bucket on Dec. 17, 2011. The enigmatic and charismatically bonkers world leader ruled North Korea for 17 years before dying of a heart attack at age 69. He took over the reins of the reclusive Asian country in 1994 from the country’s previous leader and Jong Il’s father, Kim Il Sung, who coincidentally also died of a heart attack (the elder Kim made it into his eighties, though).

Around the table on Christmas Eve, after a couple of glasses of wine, a relative showed me a YouTube video of North Koreans mourning the loss of their great leader. I’m painfully cordial at dinner tables, especially during the holidays. Death is not something that I find polite to discuss. The only thing less polite would be to converse about politics. But the video sure was striking. One image from the video particularly struck me. It was of a man crying—just bawling—on the steps of what I assumed was a government building.

“Can you believe it?” my relative asked.

Given the press Kim Jong Il has gotten on this side of the Pacific, it’d be difficult to believe that anyone would shed a tear over his passing. Yet, here this man was, sobbing so openly you’d think it was his wife or mother. It made me think about how relative everything is. Who knows? Perhaps this reaction was a calculated piece of propaganda to either show that Jong Il was beloved by his people; or, maybe it was a device wielded by those to prove the opposite—that the people of North Korea are so brainwashed that they thought the fruit bat who led them was someone likened to a god.

Even gods die, though. Just ask Zeus. The world wondered if the death of the country’s supreme leader would leave a power vacuum in North Korea. These thoughts were laid to rest on Dec. 29, 2011 as Kim Jong Un, Jong Il’s son, was named as his father’s successor. In fact, he was even dubbed “The Great Successor,” which may very well be the coolest title a world leader can have.

According to an article on SFGate.com, Kim Yong Nam, North Korean Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly (I’ll take it back, that is the coolest title a world leader can have) said of Jong Un, “Respected Comrade Kim Jong Un is our party, military and country’s supreme leader who inherits great comrade Kim Jong Il’s ideology, leadership, character, virtues, grit and courage.”

So Yong Nam not only has a cool title, but he’s also not shy with the adjectives. I’ve always been fascinated by the North Korean supreme leader, simply because the stories you hear about the country seem so deliciously fictitious. It’s like something out of a surrealist novel, or maybe even an epic poem. When I first heard the news of his death, my knee-jerk reaction was that it was some kind of hoax. Really, I sort of hoped it was, because as crazy as he might have been, his image—the Elvis hair, stoic face and outlandish clothing—made the world more interesting. I wasn’t the only one who thought so. Even as Jong Un was being named the new supreme leader, Kim Jong Il souvenir sales surged just across the North Korean border into China, according to an article published by the Agency France-Presse. One such vendor of these trinkets stated that she had sold “50 to 60 lapel pins every day during the 13-day mourning period” after Jong Il’s death. Any way you slice it, he certainly had an effect on people.

Who knows what legends will surround the new guy, but he certainly got his career off to a memorable start, one already clouded by conjecture. The Great Successor was unveiled at a massive memorial service for his father that saw hundreds of thousands of people converge upon Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang to pledge their fealty and support to the country’s new leader, according to SFGate.com. Strangely enough, CBS News reported that “Tens of thousands” attended the same memorial.

I guess the passing of Kim Jong Il and the tale of his successor are like many other things in life. It’s all about what you want to believe—like Santa Claus, or Balloon Boy, or that watching The Jersey Shore on a regular basis doesn’t make you a terrible person. I’d wager there’s probably a little bit of truth in everything, no matter how bizarre, vile or improbably wonderful, which is most likely why the world is such a fascinating place. Rest in peace, KJI, or some semblance thereof.

By James Barone
jb@submergemag.com

Post from: Submerge Magazine

For example, the world’s financial system didn’t (completely) collapse in 2011. Greece put forth a Herculean effort to slay the beast with its debt-laden club, but that 30-headed, 100-armed, 80-legged, spineless, heartless bastard of an exchange system just keeps on trucking. Greece can thank countries like Germany for saving its ass when it was on the verge of collapse. Germany really must have learned its lesson from WWII, since the last time it was in such a position of power things went rather differently. Add to the list of things that didn’t happen: WWIII.

Across the pond in the good ol’ U.S. of A., plans to fix the economy were slow going at best. Apparently, we built the road to recovery right through the middle of both houses of Congress, who then decided that they weren’t going to do shit in 2011. Sure, they bickered, horse traded, blackmailed, threatened, lied, cheated and stole, but what did they accomplish that actually benefited the rest of us? Instead, we got a stalemate of epic proportions, pitting morons against idiots in a battle to see who can fuck up the hardest. My verdict: it’s a DRAW! Each member of Congress has proven himself stupider than the next, creating an infinite loop of idiocy like some sort of moronic M.C. Escher sketch.

While Congress sat on its hands, the banks kept theirs in their pockets. Hopefully, you didn’t need any cash in 2011 to do something crazy like invest in your small business (job creators!) or home, because the bank wasn’t about to give you shit. The almighty dollar was worshiped by the big banks, and they wouldn’t let it out of their sights. Instead they stacked more and more scratch, making the banks themselves the only people who got paid in 2011.

Perhaps there’s a chance to make a change with the 2012 elections. I only say “perhaps” because I’ve been watching the party sludge build up all through 2011. Do you really want to know what didn’t happen last year? Take a look at the presidential primary campaign season so far.

Donald Trump did not prove he wasn’t a complete douche bag. Herman Cain did not remember to keep his dick in his pants. Rick Perry did not realize he was going to have to talk so much or ever make sense. Mitt Romney did not reveal the location of his off switch, nor did he enable his emotion chip. Michele Bachmann did not cleanse the world of gays and socialists as she had been praying to do. Rick Santorum did not cleanse his Google presence of neither semen, lube nor buttholes.

Newt Gingrich did not convince the country that the moon needed to be mined or that we ought to be able to jail federal court judges if Congress doesn’t agree with their opinions. Ron Paul did not write racist articles that he may have signed and possibly profited from. Poor, seemingly normal John Huntsman didn’t really stand a chance against these nut jobs. Finally, Barack Obama did not prove he was an American by providing birthers with a sample of the first shit he took upon exiting the birth canal so it could be tested for Kenyan dietary staples. For shame, Obama. For shame!

Speaking of old shits, a lot of famous people died this year. There were definitely some sad ones for me, but I was actually more surprised by the ones that didn’t die. I was pretty sure Lindsay Lohan and Charlie Sheen were both going to kick the bucket in 2011. Those two are like a train wreck on the deck of a sinking Titanic. If LiLo and Chuckles ever hook up, may God have mercy on our souls.

Which brings me to the last (and most important) thing that didn’t happen in 2011: God, Allah, Jesus, Yahweh, Krishna, Jehovah, Buddha, Shiva, Thor, the Devil, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Harold Camping, Nostradamus, Dictators, terrorists and/or patriots [Insert Deity/Enemy/Perceived threat/soothsayer/random asshole here] did not destroy the Earth in 2011. May I/he/she/it/you/they/we/me/him/her/us/nothing continue to keep up the good work for many more years to come!

By Bocephus Chigger
bocephus@submergemag.com

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