There will be a myth tomorrow, I promise. But something happened to me yesterday and I have to tell you guys about it and this is basically the only website where people come to hear me tell them about shit (other than this website, but that website is for faces only.) So chill out, and let me tell you a story:

(Forgive me if I don’t do the line break thing today.)

There’s this building in Downtown Chicago where I go every week for therapy. It’s a tall building with lots of offices in it. One of those offices belongs to a market research company. I know this because every few weeks I am accosted by the same cheerfully frumpy woman with the same beat-up clipboard, asking me if I want to be paid fifteen dollars to participate in a 30-minute marketing survey.

I desperately want to be paid fifteen dollars to participate in a 30-minute marketing survey.

Wanted, I should say. It’s not that I particularly needed the fifteen dollars. Part of my motivation was that I thought it would be a fun opportunity to lie to some marketers. Mostly, though, I was just insanely curious about what a thirty-minute marketing survey consisted of.

The problem was that I never seemed to be part of the demographic they were looking for. I simply didn’t buy enough things. The lady on the street would ask me a series of screening questions, and time after time I would fail out for not spending enough on shaving products, or not spending enough on cookies, or not being a thirty-one year old female who regularly dyes her hair. I knew what I had to do: Next time I saw the woman and her clipboard, I was just gonna say yes to fucking EVERYTHING.

Yesterday I finally got my chance.

“Wanna make 15 dollars by doing a marketing survey?” she said.
“Shit YEAH I do,” I said.
“How old are you?”
“TWENTY-FOUR YEARS OLD, BABY.”
“Do you buy any of these products?” she asked, holding out a creased color photograph of a supermarket shelf stocked with salty snack food.
“ALL OF THEM,” I said, “EVERY DAY. ESPECIALLY LAYS BRAND POTATO CHIPS.”
“Perfect,” she said, “Come with me.”

I was in. She lead me to the 8th floor, where her office was marked by a logo on an 8.5/11 sheet of paper:

and down a corridor into one of about a dozen tiny interview rooms. She asked me more questions, about what specific types of salty snacks I preferred, how often I bought toothpaste, what my average household income was, etc. I lied about half the time. I’m not sure why I told the truth when I did, but when I lied it was because I felt like I had entered a life-or-death game with this cheerfully frumpy woman and her clipboard, a game that was scored based on who walked away with the most information. I was determined to win this survey.

The woman finished her questions and told me to wait in the waiting room for the actual study to begin. I had thought that the questions were the actual study. I was suddenly nervous. Almost immediately a young woman appeared and asked me to follow her. She lead me down a different corridor and into … well it took me a second to figure out where I was.

I was in a supermarket, looking down the hair care aisle. These terrifying people had constructed an exact replica of a bare-bones supermarket, complete with jazzy christmas muzak on the PA, and a little red shopping cart just for me. The woman told me to place items in my cart as I normally would while shopping, and promised to meet me at the exit. I had no choice. I began to shop.

This was complicated by the fact that I had lied about most of my product preferences during the survey, and was now attempting to act natural as I struggled to remember what I had said. Luckily they did not seem to have most of the products I’d claimed to prefer. I put a box of Swanson’s chicken broth in my cart, since it seemed like the type of thing I might actually buy, and in the midst of this weirdness I desperately needed to do something natural. Then I rounded the corner into the salty snack food aisle.

The first thing I saw was a WALL of Lays Brand Potato Chips. Fully a third of the left side of the aisle was full of them, ludicrously more than were necessary. I noticed some salt-and-vinegar chips among them, and immediately grabbed a bag for my cart. I like salt and vinegar chips. This was not a lie. I was not capable of lying. There were too many bags of Lays Brand Potato Chips. As an afterthought, I noticed some bags of pretzel bites on the opposite side of the aisle. I actually stopped to consider which flavor I preferred, forgetting that I was not going to be allowed to taste either.

At the end of the aisle I stopped to consider another product. I don’t remember what it was, because in the middle of my examination I looked up and noticed a video camera pointed down the aisle I’d just navigated. There was no camera on me now. My actions were meaningless.

And yet I STILL PRETENDED TO SHOP THROUGH THE REST OF THE FAKE STORE. I made sure to buy soup and toothpaste, because these were two types of products I had claimed to enjoy.

The young woman met me at the exit, as promised, and lead me back to one of the interrogation rooms. On the way I passed what appeared to be a replica convenience store. The woman sat down at a computer and asked me to recall my experience of the salty snack food aisle.

It was at this point that I realized how much information I was actually giving them. I remembered almost nothing about the salty snack food aisle, other than the wall of Lays Brand Potato Chips and the pretzel bites I had stumbled across accidentally. I had been completely blind to any other food. She showed me pictures of a series of products and asked if I had seen them in the aisle. I answered Yes, No, No, No, No, Yes, No, No… I had seen less than a third of the products she showed me. I asked her whether all of those products had even been in the aisle, and she assured me that yes, they had. She showed me a video of myself in the snack food aisle. In the video I walked confidently to the wall of Lays Brand Potato Chips and jauntily tossed a bag into my cart.

“Why didn’t you hesitate?” she asked.
“Because …” I had no fucking clue.

I told her I liked salt and vinegar potato chips, but she didn’t seem to believe me. I wasn’t sure I believed myself. She asked me a battery of other questions, about how I thought the products in the aisle were organized (by brand), whether I thought the aisle contained a wide variety of products (I assumed so, but I had only seen the Lays Potato Chips), and whether I agreed with the statement “The products in this aisle taste delicious.” (I wanted to explain that I had eaten maybe three of the fifty or so products in the aisle, but somehow I don’t think that was the point of the question.) She asked me if I chose things based on where they were on the shelves, and whether I thought the shelf positions of various items made sense. She showed me different sectors of the aisle, and asked me to rate how logically they were organized. They all seemed more or less the same, and yet I found myself intuitively assigning different number values to each of them. Then she asked me the same battery of questions AGAIN, in a different order, presumably in order to catch me in one of my numerous lies. Luckily, I had all but stopped lying at that point. My will was mud. I didn’t know who I was anymore. Why had I decided to lie before, I wondered? Why some lies and not others? How had I managed to make a series of real decisions in a fake grocery store?

As the interrogation progressed, it became clear that the purpose of this study was to figure out how to effectively market Baked Lays. More and more of the questions began to focus on Baked Chips and why I didn’t seem to like them. I was helpless to answer these questions. It had simply never occurred to me to purchased Baked Lays Potato Chips. Yeah, I’m cynical about their supposed health advantages, but really I just don’t want to buy them and I have no idea why. I would rather eat a bag of snakes. And to me this says that whoever paid these marketing chumps to do this survey are on the right track.

We’ve all heard that food giants fight tooth and nail over their position on grocery store shelves. But until now, I had no concrete proof that they were doing this. THEY ARE FUCKING DOING THIS. This study contained no blind taste test. No electrodes were strapped to my head. They just put me in a people-sized rat maze and STARED.

Today I went grocery shopping. It was harrowing. The food in the aisles was gerrymandered beyond mortal comprehension. Cheese was located in two different sections on opposite ends of the store. All of the tomato puree was grouped together, except for one brand of tomato puree, which was elsewhere. Every time I selected a product, I frantically scoured the aisle to make sure I hadn’t missed a competing brand. I could not bring myself to even enter the salty snack food aisle. As I entered the checkout line, I noticed that I had put a carton of Swanson’s chicken broth in my cart, despite having plenty of chicken broth at home.

I feel as if I will never be able to shop normally again. Then again, they told me I was qualified to participate in another study in ninety days. Maybe that’s how long it takes for the effects to wear off. That’s why I’m writing this. I need to preserve this revelation. We are all rats in mazes, my friends, playthings to trillion-dollar gods who reach out with snaking tendrils to rearrange the products on our grocery store shelves. There is nothing we can do about this. We are stupid in their hands.

Is it like this in other countries? Please tell me it’s not.

Today’s myth comes from a little book I like to call
“The Maltese Falcon”
because that’s what it’s called
it is basically what you are thinking about
if you are thinking about noir fiction
and it goes like this

so Sam Spade looks like satan
let’s get that out of the way right up front
because over the course of the book
this is something you get told like A MILLION TIMES
if you are not sure about anything else that is going on
in this labyrinthine detective novel
just remember:
the main dude
the one you like
is SATAN
but like
a buff satan
cause this is AMERICA

okay so Sam Spade is in his office
and a hot chick is also in his office
and this hot chick wants to pay Sam and his partner Miles 200 bucks
to follow some dude who she says fucked her sister
Sam thinks her story is total bullshit
but he likes the look of her 200 dollars
and Miles likes the look of her body parts
so they take the case

cut to like 3 minutes later
Miles is dead
so is the guy he was following
it’s like 3AM and Sam is like fuuuuuck
you guys woke me up at 3AM
and now I have to look at dead bodies
this is bullshit
(oh yeah
i didn’t mean to imply those two guys were in the same place
Miles is in a dead-end alleyway [no pun intended]
and the other guy is in a hotel or something
honestly i forget)
and the police are like hey sam
do you know anything about all these murders
and Sam is like yeah
I know that you can go fuck yourself
then he goes home and gets WASTED

SERIOUSLY
dude drinks like a whole bottle of Bacardi
and when the police bust into his apartment at 4AM
he’s like sup guys
would you like some rum
while I stumble around the room telling you to suck my nuts?
and the police are not pleased with his behavior
but then they leave because Sam is way too blackout drunk to tell them anything
this is going to happen like NINETY MORE TIMES

okay so then I guess he sleeps off all that rum
and he goes over to the apartment of the chick who hired him
whose name is Brigid
and he’s getting followed by this weird scrawny kid
but he loses the kid and goes up to Brigid’s place
and is basically like yo bitch
everything you told me was a lie
prolly even your name
but fuck it, i’m not learning another name
and now my partner is dead
and it’s not like I really liked him
in fact, I’m fucking his wife
but this kind of shit is bad for business
so tell me what’s up
and Brigid is like here’s what’s up
I will give you like 500 dollars
to protect me from all the people
who are legitimately pissed off at me
for doing something I’m not going to tell you about
you are going to accept this sketchy deal because I have boobs
and Sam Spade is like what
i’m sorry I was too busy looking at your boobs and looting your wallet

so spade goes back to his office
and there’s this dude there named Cairo
who offends Spade with his effeminate sense of style
and also the gun he is threatening Spade with
so spade takes the gun with basically no problems
and then Cairo is like hey
no hard feelings
how would you like 10,000 dollars to get me a statue of a bird
you may recognize it
ITS NAME IS THE TITLE OF THIS BOOK
and spade is like That actually sounds pretty awesome
and then Cairo leaves
and Spade goes over to Brigid’s place like alright
what the fuck is this about

so Brigid does a bunch of crying and shit
and lies her ass off for a while
and then she’s like Okay I really need to talk to Cairo
so spade takes her over to his place
and he calls up Cairo
and Cairo comes over and Brigid is like I can get you the bird
but not right now
and then Cairo gets all pissed and pulls out his gun
and spade punches him
and then the fucking COPS show up
and spade has to tell them this goofy story
about how all the people screaming and pistol-whipping each other in his house
are really just there as part of an elaborate ploy
to prank the police
which works, for some reason
but Cairo leaves with the cops anyway
and then Spade basically uses scare tactics
to convince Brigid that it’s not safe for her to leave his apartment
and that instead what she should do
is hang out and have sex with him
so that happens

then in the morning he leaves her passed out in bed
and goes and ransacks her apartment
and finds nothing
then comes back home and is like ALRIGHT
ONE NIGHT STAND COMPLETE
GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE
then he gets himself kidnapped by that kid who’s been following him
and taken to meet this fat asshole named Gutman
who keeps saying “Gad” instead of “God”

So Gutman is like Dude
do you even know what this bird is that everyone wants?
and Spade is like Nup
and Gutman is like Okay, lemme tell you for like a million pages
TL:DR – it’s a gold bird some knights used to pay their rent to the king of spain
some dude painted it black because it was way too tacky
it’s worth like a billion dollars or something
so then Gutman is like I WILL GIVE YOU FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS FOR THE BIRD
and Spade is like Sure, yeah
gimme a minute
I need to go outside and cause more problems

So he goes back to his office and Brigid is there
and she’s like waaaaaah
some dude ransacked my apartment while we were getting our bone on
and Spade is like oh shit
your apartment is not safe
better have sex with me more in my apartment
and Brigid is like I have a better idea
how about I skip town
and Spade is like that’s a GREAT idea
here, use my secretary’s house
she lives with her mom
but she won’t mind
she’s used to being an accessory to crimes
then he puts Brigid in a cab and sends her to the suburbs

thus begins the portion of the novel
where all the characters line up in single file
so sam spade can take turns telling them to go fuck themselves
first he tells the cops to go fuck themselves again
then he tells it to the district attourney
then he tells it to that skinny kid who followed him
then he tells it to Gutman
who poisons him with rohypnol for laffs
then he wakes up
and finds out that Brigid didn’t go to his secretary’s house
instead she went to the docks
and everyone knows nothing good happens at the docks
other than like one time I saw a crazy sea-carnival
they pushed two boats together and they juggled fire and shit
it was sweet as hell

so he looks at some newspapers and figures out what boat she was looking for
because oh yeah, I forgot to say that this story takes place in San Francisco
and before she was in San Francisco Brigid was in Hong Kong
and there’s only one boat that just arrived from hong kong
and also
that boat is on fire
so that’s sort of a dead end

and you know what else is a dead end?
the mortally wounded sea captain who chooses this moment
to bust into spade’s office
carrying a brown paper package
containing THE MALTESE FALCON
so spade watches this dude die
and then he takes the bird
and mails it to himself
because no ring of criminal masterminds is a match
for the UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE

then Brigid calls him up and tells him they’re holding her hostage
out in the burbs
but it turns out that’s totally bullshit
and when he gets back to his apartment
everyone is in there, causing a ruckus
everyone being Brigid, Cairo, Gutman
and gutman’s scrawny boyslave Wilmer
the one with the guns Spade has already stolen once

so Gutman is like Alright dude
we have tried basically every flavor of bullshit on you
and now it comes down to this:
give us the bird
and I will give you ten thousand dollars
and Spade is like sure okay
but you also have to frame one of your dudes
because otherwise the cops are gonna raw-dog me straight into retirement
I’m too much of a magnificent asshole to retire
I think we’ve established this
so I say we pin all the murders on your boy Wilmer

Obviously wilmer isn’t pleased about this
so Spade punches everyone in the face and takes all the guns
and then he’s like Okay guys
I really have like 100% of the bargaining chips right now
and Gutman agrees
so Spade has his secretary go get the bird from the post office
and everyone prepares to be phenomenally fucking wealthy

so the bird arrives
and they open the package
and they take out a knife to cut off the paint and see the delicious gold beneath
except WHAT THE NUTS
THIS BIRD IS NOT MADE OF GOLD AND JEWELS
IT IS MADE OF LEAD AND DISAPPOITMENT
apparently the dude they stole this bird from in Turkey
was way too crafty for them
and pulled some crazy indiana jones shit with a fake bird
so Gutman loses his shit and takes 9 of the 10k back from Spade
and then he and his boys leave
and Spade calls the cops on them
and then it’s just Spade and Brigid
alone in the apartment
so obviously they bone, right?

WRONG
because Spade chooses this very moment to reveal
that he totally knows who killed his partner
IT WAS BRIGID THE WHOLE TIME
She used her feminine wiles to lure him into an alley
with the sweet promise of handjobs
and then when he was in there, she shot him
why, you ask?
No one seems to really know the answer to that
basically she was on the run after stealing this bird
(which she gave to that sea captain who got shot
like for safekeeping
and that’s why that boat was on fire I guess)
and she picked up this bodyguard in Hong Kong
but she didn’t want to split the money with him
so she figured if she hired a private detective to follow him
he’d freak out and run
but he didn’t
so instead
she … shot the private detective she hired?

so he tells Brigid all this
and she’s like BUT YOU STILL LOVE ME, RIGHT?
and Spade is like Bitch
I may not have liked my partner very much
in fact I’m still kinda fucking his wife
but in my business
we have a saying you may have heard:
Bros
Before
Hos
You think you’re special?
There are three female characters in this book
you, my secretary, and my partner’s wife
I have fucked ALL OF YOU
I have pulled literally 100% of the tail in this narrative
and you think I am going to shack up with a cold-blooded psychopath
because she gives good handjobs?
Nice try, murderpuss
say hello to prison for me.
Then he sells her out to the police
and has to give up the thousand dollars as evidence
so in the end
nobody is happy
which is just the way Sam Spade likes it

SO THE MORAL OF THE STORY
is that you should never pay someone an exorbitant amount of money
to solve murders
that YOU YOURSELF COMMITTED
seriously people
this is like murder 101

The end.

ELVIS LIVES!

Now for those of you who think they don’t make myths like they used to
I offer you one compelling counterexample.
This counterexample is named
ELVIS PRESLEY.
This guy is equal parts Orpheus, Dionysis and Hercules.
(Don’t worry, it’ll all make sense by the end).
I mean, granted, he didn’t start out too great.
Like, his family is super poor
and if I had a nickel for every person who told young Elvis he couldn’t sing
Well, I’d still be nowhere near as wealthy as Elvis
but I’d at least have a little beer money, if you know what I mean.
But when he’s still a wee lad, his parents get him a guitar for his birthday
which he is actually pretty disappointed about
but only because what he really wanted was a GUN
and how American is that?
Anyway, he gets the guitar
and I cannot for the life of me figure out why
but he keeps practicing
even when everyone he runs up on seems intent on finding more and more creative ways
to tell him how bad he sucks.
He just keeps on losing singing contests
and styling his hair with a combination of vaseline and antigravity
until one day he struts into this record studio to record some songs
and he gets DISCOVERED.

Now, there is a reason why this happens
and that reason
is that at this time in ancient American history
white people and black people are not on the best of terms
especially in the south, where Elvis lives.
Like, black people can’t even go to a white people CONCERT, and vice versa.
But there are a bunch of white dudes who REALLY DIG the music black people are making
except they just wish it was a white guy who was singing it, is all
and along comes Elvis, who grew up listening to all this music black people are making
and has, like, the PERFECT VOICE for it
and so the white dudes who own the record label are like “Alright
we can make this work.”

AND MAKE IT WORK THEY DO.
They make it work to the tune of HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS
in a time where a hundred thousand dollars is pretty much an imaginary number
and not only that
but when Elvis starts doing concerts
it turns out that he is also SUPER SEXY
like, he starts waggling his hips because he is actually pretty nervous
but it turns out that with every waggle of his hips
he is also waggling the heartstrings of EVERY LADY IN THE ROOM.
He waggles their heartstrings so hard that they start throwing their underwears at him
and then making him sign his name on their sexyparts
which, in the 1950s, basically means anything above the ankle.
So of course he keeps doing these hip-waggles.
In fact, he starts waggling his hips MORE AND MORE
and it kinda freaks out the people who maybe don’t WANT ladies’ heartstrings getting waggled
like devout Christians and stuff
which is funny, because Elvis is ALSO pretty Christian.
He just happens to be a Christian who likes to waggle his hips is all.

Anyway, all the anti-wagglers in the world are not enough to stop Elvis’s rise to fame.
He gets super rich and well-known, and starts being in movies and stuff
but then DISASTER STRIKES:
Elvis Presley gets drafted into the US ARMY.
But he’s fine with that, because he is a GODDAMN AMERICAN HERO.
So he gets shipped over to Germany for a while
and every time he goes on leave, he pretty much records like a million top-selling records
and meanwhile he uses all of his crazy riches to buy all kinds of sweet gear for his army buddies
like new fatigues, and color TVs, and amphetamines.
He also manages to not get killed, which is good.

Then he comes back home and spends about seven years making TERRIBLE music/movies
until finally he’s like “Wait a second… Didn’t I used to be a total badass or something?”
At which point he puts on a white sequined jumpsuit
fit to outshine the combined glory of Zeus and King Ramses
and he does him some CONCERTS.
I’m sorry, did I say some concerts?
I meant all the concerts.
This guy is pulling off like a hundred and seventy concerts a year!
That is too many concerts!

And as if that wasn’t enough
he is also making constant improvements to his crazy huge mansion on Graceland Ranch
which is located at 3764 Elvis Presley Drive in Memphis Tennessee.
Wait, how is ELVIS FUCKING PRESLEY number 3764 on the street that BEARS HIS NAME??
Well, whatever.
The point is that this house is a modern-day pleasure palace
complete with plush purple drapes
an indoor waterfall
and limitless hamburgers.
Also, Elvis likes to sit in the basement and watch three TVs at once
and then change the channel by shooting the TVs WITH GUNS.
CHANNEL SURFING WITH GUNS IS PERHAPS THE MOST AMERICAN ACTIVITY THERE IS.

And as if THAT wasn’t enough
Elvis also gets wayyy into KARATE.
Yeah, he starts learning all these deadly moves
and jumping around and doing karate chops on stage
and at one point, some dudes try to bum-rush him during a performance
and he BEATS THE SHIT OUT OF THEM BY HIMSELF.
(Also one of his wives ends up cheating on him with her Karate instructor, so there’s that).

But yeah, mostly he’s doing WAY TOO MANY concerts/drugs.
He’s only about 40
but he is on so many drugs that his age is effectively doubled.
It’s like his circulatory system is the party house that everyone went to when you were in college
where they never had time to clean the poop off the walls because of too many parties.
You know what I’m talking about.
Well, even if you don’t, I’m sure Elvis would have.
He’s just stumbling up to the microphone at these concerts
holding on for dear life
and slurring his words like he’s giving a drunken blowjob to a horse.
It’s not pretty
nobody likes it
and his audiences are getting less and less sexy too.

So after selling over seventy-five million records
and topping even more charts with his albums than with his blood-toxicity levels
Elvis finally goes down.
He dies on the floor of his bathroom in Graceland
with about fifteen different drugs in his system
which is pretty legendary on its own.
But what happens afterwards is even more legendary.

So you remember Hercules, right?
You remember how he died, after a long and storied career
because his wife gave him POISON?
But then he didn’t really die
because the gods took pity on him
and put him in SPACE??
Yeah, I think you know where this is going.
Because Elvis may have died of a drug overdose
but he was such a radical musician
that ALIENS took pity on him
and put him
in space.

And to this day, his worshippers perform his rites
dressing in his traditional garb and re-enacting his greatest achievements
holding massive conventions in his name every year
saying prayers and bringing offerings to his final resting place in the meditation garden at Graceland.
And on top of all that
there’s his name
which is
say it with me now:
THE KING.

The end.

So it’s been a while since I’ve talked about America
let’s fix this
starting with a kid named Billy

So Billy gets born in New York City, way back in the day, to an Irish mom and an invisible dad.
He’s a mischievous little bastard
and by the time he’s like 12, he gets a little too mischievous and gets thrown in jail.
But it’s okay, because in addition to being a mischievous bastard
he is also a little bastard, like I said
so he escapes from prison by crawling out of the chimney
and then he goes WEST.

Now the West is a whole mythical realm all on its own
but let it just suffice to say
that at the time this story takes place
the west was pretty much just a glistening repository of guns, guff, and gumption.
So naturally, a mischievous little bastard like Billy is gonna fit right in.
And FIT RIGHT IN HE DOES.
First he shoots a blacksmith who’s trying to push him around
then he runs off and becomes a cattle rustler/cheesemaker
and then after doing that for a while
he gets hired by this lawyer named McSween to GUARD some cattle
because apparently they didn’t do background checks in those days.

But maybe they did do background checks
because as a cattle guard
Billy’s job description is to basically murder all the dudes who work for the OTHER cattle guys
who, granted, are classic mustache-twirling villains
who do things like shoot people
and then shoot their horses
and then cut off the heads of the horses and put them on the heads of the dudes.
Messed up, I know.

So yeah, bullets fly back and forth between these two posses of bad dudes for a while
and both sides do things that are pretty messed up
but the guys Billy is fighting against are way richer and know way more important government dudes
and also Billy makes the mistake of shooting at some US Cavalry
so in the end, he gets indicted
and has to make a plea bargain to get a pardon
where he totally sells out some of the other dudes in his gang.
But when he comes in to testify
THEY TOTALLY JUST ARREST HIM
so he’s just like “Psh, you guys clearly have not heard about me and chimneys.”
Then he climbs out the chimney and rides away on a horse someone brought for him.

So now Billy the Kid is widely known as a seriously bad dude
and the governor of New Mexico starts offering a really sweet reward for his arrest:
FIVE HUNDRED BUCKS.
DUDE.
Five hundred bucks?!
That’s barely enough to buy five hours with a very classy prostitute…
Wait, okay, I see how this could work.

ENTER PAT GARETT
he’s a buffalo hunter
but that does not mean he cannot also hunt DUDES.
Dudes are basically the same as buffalo
except with less legs and more bullets.
Some people say that Pat and Billy used to be best friends
but normally you do not form a posse to go arrest/kill your best friend for a measly 500 bucks.
Usually it takes like 600 at LEAST
So I don’t know.

Anyway, Pat chases Billy around for a while
while Billy is rustling cattle HARDCORE
and also pranking dudes with his guns
like this one time
when he’s hanging out in a bar
and this drunk jerk is like “I AM TOTALLY GOING TO KILL BILLY THE KID.”
Totally unaware of the fact that Billy is RIGHT THERE IN THE BAR.
So Billy walks up to him
and he’s like “Nice gun. Mind if I take a look?”
So the guy gives him the gun
LIKE AN IDIOT
and then instead of just shooting the dude with it, like a normal badass
Billy goes ahead and rotates the barrel so that the next chamber to fire will be empty
and then gives it back to him
and then he’s like “Oh, by the way, I’m Billy the Kid.”
And the guy is like “WHAAAAAAT” and starts shooting at him
but no bullets come out of his gun, obviously
so then Billy kills him
and everyone is like “Well, that was unnecessary
and therefore TOTALLY AWESOME.”

But all awesome things must come to an end.
One morning, Pat Garett tracks Billy and his gang to a little house on the Prairie
and he barricades the door with a dead horse
and then he starts cooking BACON.
And he’s like “Hey Billy, how would you like to come out and eat some tasty bacon?”
And Billy is like “Hey Pat, how would you like to GO TO HELL.”
And Pat is like “Well I’m sorry you feel that way, buddy.
I guess you can just starve to death inside that house of yours.”
But no one can withstand the smell of bacon for long
so eventually Billy and his gang surrender so they can get some breakfast.

Then Billy gets convicted, of course
for a whole bunch of murders
some of which he probably didn’t even commit
but that’s okay, because the number of murders he’s accused of
makes him a TOTAL CELEBRITY
he gets to go to Las Vegas and do interviews!
Granted, he spends a good portion of the interview denying a lot of those very same murders
but whatever, he’s famous!
Unfortunately, it also means that he gets sentenced to death for his crimes
and the prison where he’s being kept until he gets executed
DOESN’T EVEN HAVE A CHIMNEY.
So I guess he’s just boned, huh?

WRONG.
Because this is when Billy the Kid pulls some straight up action hero shit
like, his guards are walking him over to get executed
and he KNOCKS ONE OUT WITH HIS MANACLES
then he steals that dude’s gun, and shoots the other one in the face
after addressing him with a catchy one-liner BY NAME.
He then has to put off his escape for an hour
while he somehow manages to chew through his leg-irons.

But there is a natural law in the old West.
It is called the Conservation of Gumption.
It states that one man cannot hog all of the gumption for too long
before he has to die and let other people have a turn
and that’s why
three months later
Pat Garett finally catches up with Billy in some random house one night
and Billy goes down like a clown to a bullet in the stomach while yelling “Who’s there?” in Spanish.
At the time of his death, Billy is just shy of twenty-one years old
and according to some (wildly inaccurate) estimates
he has killed TWENTY-ONE MEN.
Dude
even if he only killed like five guys
dude has some serious work ethic.
I mean, I’ve already lived longer than he did
and I have yet to kill anything more intimidating than a spider.
Oh well
to each his own.

But I guess maybe that’s the moral of the story
that if you make a career out of killing dudes
eventually you are probably going to be one of the dudes who gets killed
but also
you will be REALLY AWESOME.

The end.

Okay guys, it’s time we had a talk
come here guys
yes, yes, sit down
hoo, okay…
now, your mothers and I have noticed that you’re starting to get to that certain age
where your body will start to undergo humiliating changes
changes that have never happened to anyone else ever
and we have also noticed
that you have some disturbing ideas about where babies come from
garnered from books, no doubt
Feh!
Well don’t worry guys, I got this covered
this is how sex works:

so when a man and a woman
or a man and a man
or a woman and a cow
love each other very very much
they start out by giving each other a special kind of hug
this hug is called a suplex, but with penetration
it’s great, you should try it all the time
but then comes the weird part
because then the woman gets so excited about the baby she’s gonna get
that she eats a whole bunch of cake and balloons
and her stomach gets all large and tumescent
and it’s hard to poop out fully inflated balloons
so that shit stays in there for NINE MONTHS
and meanwhile, THE NEGOTIATIONS BEGIN

What negotiations, you ask?
Well, surely you didn’t think procreation was merely a matter of putting a penis in a vagina?
why, if it was that simple, EVERYONE would be having babies, all the time!
No no no, only shrewd diplomats like me and your mothers get to have babies
and this is because of the storks.

Ever wonder why birds aren’t extinct yet?
I sure used to.
They’re basically tiny feathered problem machines
that exist solely to shit in your hair and attack schoolchildren in horror movies
we have guns, let’s get on this, right?
WRONG.
Because what you don’t realize
is that storks have taken EVERY BABY IN THE WORLD HOSTAGE
and made themselves the sole proprietors of human reproduction
in exchange for the continued survival of phylum Birdseria.
So how this works is that anyone who wants to have a baby
must go to a pond in the middle of the night
with a nondescript suitcase full of at least two hundred thousand dollars in nonsequential herring
and then a representative from the Baby Dispensary Committee comes with a contract
and you have to sign it in blood
and then they go back to their secret baby vault
and they pick out a baby based on how much money you give them
and how hot they think you are
which is why sexy people have sexy babies
and rich people have gold-plated racecar babies
but then they have to wait nine months to deliver the baby to your house
because before that your wife is still full of balloons and shit
and that would freak the baby out.

So the moral of the story
is that condoms are a conspiracy perpetrated by birds
to prevent us from discovering their underground Fort Knox for babies.

Goodnight.

WELCOME BACK MY FRIENDS, TO THE BLACK HEART OF SPACE
YOU HAVE ARRIVED JUST IN TIME TO WATCH THIS TEXT FLOAT PAST US
the text is like
“Alright guys, you know the drill
Han Solo is frozen in carbonite
and everyone else has to go back to Tattooine to save him
also, the Rebels don’t know this yet
but the empire is building a whole new death star
holy shit, right?”
Man, if the rebels would just send out a probe to intercept this crazy space text
I think it would have a really profound effect on the intergalactic war.

Anyway, down on Tattooine Jabba the Hutt is having a crazy party
this party is known as Jabba the Hutt’s entire life
seriously, this guy is constantly submerged in an underground bunker
flooded with smooth jazz, whores, and good times
when all of a sudden R2D2 humps down the door with his metal dick
followed closely by the nebula of cowardice and complaints that calls itself C3PO
and R2D2 busts out a sweet hologram of a gothed-up Luke Skywalker
who is like “Jabba, my man
you should give me Han Solo. I will totally pay top dollar for him.
As a token of my friendship, have these droids!”
and the droids are like WHAT
and then this bounty hunter busts in dragging chewbacca and demanding space dollars
but then it turns out that the bounty hunter is actually princess Leia
and she uses her disguise to unfreeze Han Solo
and make out with him while he’s blind from carbonite poisoning
except it turns out Jabba the Hutt saw this lameass plan coming a mile away
so he throws EVERYBODY in prison
except for princess leia, who he throws into a bikini and then ties to his neck
and then Luke finally decides to show up

So apparently since last episode, luke has changed a few things:
1) he has figured out what to do with his ugly-ass hair
2) he has started dressing in all-black and wearing a skirt
3) he has somehow convinced himself he is obi wan kenobi
so he walks into Jabba’s room in a dumb robe all like YOU WILL GIVE ME BACK HAN SOLO
and Jabba is like “Bitch please
that jedi shit don’t work on me
allow me to feed you TO THE RANCOR.”
So Luke falls into a pit and has to fight a monster, which he does no problem
and then he gets captured again, and Jabba is like “okay
I guess the monster i tried to feed you to didn’t have a large enough mouth.
TIME TO FEED YOU TO A MONSTER THAT IS BASICALLY JUST A GIANT MOUTH”
seriously, has this guy not heard of lasers?
They are a safe and effective way to murder people
they do not require feeding or cleaning up after
they really are the way of the future!

But no, instead they stick Luke and friends on a landspeeder
and cart them over to this pulsing alien sphincter that lives in the desert
and they’re about to make him walk the plank
when R2D2 shoots luke’s lightsaber out of his face and luke kills EVERYONE
because apprently
THIS WAS HIS PLAN ALL ALONG.
Wait, who plans for this?
Who the fuck makes this kind of plan?
Well, whatever. The point is they all get away
including Leia, who strangles Jabba with his own sex-chain
and Han Solo is pretty traumatized
but he consoles himself with the fact that at least he got to see Leia in a bikini.

So that’s good
Luke did something positive for a change
and now he has to go fuck it all up
by going to visit Yoda again to get more terrible advice.
Luckily, by the time he arrives, yoda is pretty much dead
his lifetime of living in swamps and being a tiny green bastard finally caught up with him
so Luke is like “Hey, Yoda
before you die or whatever, could you finish training me?
You know, like you said you were gonna before I peaced out last time?”
and Yoda is like “Oh that
no, you don’t need any more training. That shit is over”
and Luke is like “Wait, so I’m technically a Jedi then, right?”
and Yoda is like “No, you still have to do one more thing”
and Luke is like “What?”
and Yoda is like “You have to go fight Darth Vader.”
and Luke is like “Wait, I already did that.
See, he chopped off my hand!”
and Yoda is like “You have to do it … again.”
Okay now wait just a goddamn second
last time Luke left Dagobah to go fight darth vader
Yoda was like “No man, don’t go, it’s a terrible idea
you have to finish your training!”
and then when luke finally came back to do what yoda said
it turns out that the final stage of his training
IS THE EXACT THING HE LEFT HIS TRAINING TO GO DO?!
WHAT THE FUCK YODA
WHAT THE PERFECT FUCK
I’M GLAD YOU JUST DIED
BECAUSE I WOULD PUNCH THROUGH CINEMATIC HISTORY TO WRECK YOUR ASS RIGHT NOW

oh but before yoda dies, he totally confirms that Darth Vader is Luke’s father
and that he turned evil and stuff
and also he tells luke that he has a sister
but then he really does have to die
so it’s time for Obi Wan’s ghost to show up and finish the story:
see, it turns out that Luke’s sister
IS PRINCESS FUCKING LEIA
yeah that’s right, guys
for those of you with doubts about whether Star Wars qualifies as a myth
in the space of one scene we just got:
“Kill your father
and that chick you’re trying to bang is your sister”
INCEST AND PATRICIDE
TWO GREAT TASTES THAT DISSOLVE ENTIRE FAMILIES
WELCOME TO THE CANON, GEORGE LUCAS

So while Luke is busy getting a genealogy lesson from green midgets and ghosts
everyone else is back at the rebel fleet, learning actually important things
it seems as if the rebels have finally intercepted the flying space text
so they know about the new death star
and they also know that it is protected by a shield
that is being generated on the planet it is orbiting, which is called Endor
So Lando Calrizzian
whose name has become no less awesome since last episode
volunteers to go blow up the death star
and Han Solo volunteers to go blow up the shield generator
and Princess Leia is like “I will go with you and then we can make out some more”
and Chewbacca is like “GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG”
and Luke busts in like “AND MY AXE”
so the gang is back together, complete with the neurotic robot versions of Penn and Teller:
C3PO and R2D2.

So Han and Co go to sneak onto Endor
but immediately their plan is put in danger
by the fact that Darth Vader can literally smell Luke coming from LIGHT-YEARS away.
He doesn’t care, though
he lets them get through, for god-knows-what reason
and then he goes to talk to his boss.
YUP THAT’S RIGHT
Baron Chokeslams Von Evilmask has a boss
his boss’s name is THE EMPEROR
and he looks a lot like my great grandmother.
His main role in this whole thing
is to constantly remark at how everything is going according to plan
while simultaneously making the dumbest plans imaginable.
Right now his plan is to hide all his spaceships on the opposite side of the planet from the death star
and then send Darth Vader down to Endor to wait for luke to come turn himself in.

Meanwhile, Han and everybody are down on Endor partying it up with the locals
who kinda look like anthropomorphic terriers who have learned to use spears
and have mistaken C3PO for some kinda god
which is nice for him
cause it’s the first time anyone’s mistaken him for anything other than an ambulatory toilet
but in the middle of this huge party, Luke is out on the balcony, moping his ass off
he’s like “Hey Leia
turns out you’re my sister.”
and Leia is like “Somehow…
I always knew.”
And Luke is like “Well I sure as shit didn’t!
I was looking forward to exploring every vector of sex-space with your fine, fine ass!
What am I supposed to do now, huh?
Do you realize that you are the only female character in this whole trilogy?”
And Leia’s like “Well that’s not true!
What about that green slave girl from Jabba’s place?”
and Luke is like “THEY DROPPED HER INTO THE RANCOR PIT, LEIA.
SHE WAS SO HOT AND GREEN AND THEY FED HER TO THE FUCKING RANCOR.
Man, fuck this, I’m gonna go turn myself in to Darth Vader.”

So he does, apparently with the intention of turning Darth Vader good?
Thus totally validating the Emperor’s shitty plan
so obviously darth vader puts him in handcuffs and takes him to the death star
where the emperor is waiting
TO TURN HIM EVIL

Here is the emperor’s great plan:
step one: bring Luke Skywalker to his secret lair inside the death star
step two: lay his light saber out in plain view
step three: make him watch all the rebel ships get blown up
while repeatedly daring him to stab you in the chest
because if he stabs you in the chest it will somehow turn him evil?
PURE GENIUS
So it’s no surprise when luke snaps and starts trying to stab him
but he ends up having to stab darth vader instead
except he keeps pussing out and refusing to fight
so darth vader has to keep trying to stab him
and finally luke loses his shit and chops off Vader’s hand
but then his conscience kicks in like “Luke!
Don’t kill all the evil guys and make a glorious escape!
That’s exactly what they want you to do!”
so instead he throws away his lightsaber, like an idiot
and the emperor responds in the only sensible way
which is to get up and shoot LIGHTNING OUT OF HIS HANDS.
Just a thought, but if you are trying to convert someone to the dark side
a good up-front selling point might be “hey:
it lets you shoot FUCKING LIGHTNING OUT OF YOUR HANDS”
I think maybe Luke might have made a different decision
had he known about the sweet lightning-related prospects in store.
But no
instead what happens is that Vader finally gets tired of watching his son have siezures
and just picks the emperor up and throws him off a bridge
and then the emperor explodes, and it’s awesome.

But what’s not as awesome is that now darth vader is going to die
because I guess picking up a dude who is covered in lightning is a bad thing to do
and before he dies he’s like “Oh man, luke
you totally turned me good or something.
Great job.
Take off my mask so I can look at your beautiful face.”
So luke takes off the mask
and it turns out that his beloved father
looks a lot like a leukemia-riddled eunuch with a harmonica in his mouth
and Luke is so freaked out
that he immediately teleports straight out of the death star and onto Endor
just so he can set his dad’s body on fire and never look at it again
(or at least I can’t think of any other explanation for how he gets off of that space station)
which is a good thing
because Han and R2D2 just pried the deflector shield open with their metal dicks
and Lando Calrizzian blew up the death star
and then everybody on all the planets began to party more heartily than ever before.

Okay, so let’s take a step back for a second
over the course of this three-episode laser orgy
what has Luke Skywalker actually accomplished?
He didn’t save his aunt and uncle from the Empire
he didn’t save his friends in cloud city
and while his buddies were busy busting their asses to blow up the death star
he was busy bonding with his father over the exploding corpse of a geriatric psycopath
sure he blew up the death star
but only because Han Solo saved his ass with lasers
and then later, saved his ass AGAIN by cutting open an animal and HIDING HIM INSIDE OF IT.
On his own, Luke is about as helpful in a galactic conflict as a hefty bag full of dead fish
it seems like his main purpose in the story as a whole
is to keep the wayward ghost of Obi Wan Kenobi entertained

so I guess after all that
the moral of the story has to be
that if you find yourself suddenly in the midst of a space opera
try to be the protagonist
it’s a pretty sweet deal.

THE END.

So when last we left our heroes
they had just blown up a big ball of apocalypse called THE DEATH STAR
and everybody got prizes and junk
but ALL IS NOT WELL
because remember that floating space-text from the beginning of the last episode?
WELL IT’S BACK
AND IT’S STATING THE OBVIOUS
it’s all
“Hey guys welcome back to star wars
Luke Skywalker totally rocked that death star
but it doesn’t matter, because the Empire has like a million ships
so they kicked the rebels off their home planet anyway
and now Luke has lead them ACROSS THE GALAXY
to hide on some godforsaken ice world called Hoth”
I don’t know how Luke got to be the leader all of a sudden
blowing up a big spaceship doesn’t exactly qualify you for command
but I guess that’s why everyone ended up on A GODFORSAKEN ICE WORLD.

Anyway, now that the flying space-text has gone off to bother someone else
let’s get down to business:
So Darth Vader has no idea where the rebels are at
and he attempts to solve this by having his whole fleet shit out like a million probes
and one of those probes lands on Hoth
where Luke Skywalker is busy getting his ass beat by a yeti
and then freezing to death in the snow
and then the ghost of Obi Wan Kenobi appears like “Luke
take off your clothes
the snow will not harm you
also you should ditch all your friends and go to planet Dagobah
and find this dude Yoda who used to teach me stuff”
so luke’s getting his full delirium on at this point
but it’s okay
because Han Solo saves him by finding him in the blizzard and stuffing him inside a dead animal.

Yeah, Han Solo is still hanging out with the idiot patrol
even though he’s clearly got more awesome shit to do
because he really, REALLY wants to bone Princess Leia
and she is totally down
but she’s gotta pretend like she’s not
and do weird shit like make out with Luke while he’s injured
in a desperate attempt to keep pace with Han Solo’s own douchebaggery

Anyway, there’s no more time for romantic subplots right now
cause remember that probe that hit the planet earlier?
It totally sent a message back to Darth Vader
and now he’s here
with like 100% of the guns
and the Rebels have to haul ass to get off the planet before Vader sets it on fire
a couple of dudes get blown up, but they weren’t very important
basically if Luke exchanges witty banter with anyone right before he gets into his fighter
that dude is about to die
and no one is about to care.

So now Luke is in space
bout to rejoin all the other rebels and go wherever rebels go
but then he’s like “wait a second
why am I rejoining all the rebels
when I could instead be listening to more of Obi Wan’s shitty advice?
SEEMS LIKE A NO-BRAINER TO ME.
YO R2D2:
NEXT STOP
DAGOBAH”
(oh yeah, R2D2 is with him in case any problems need to be miraculously solved)

Meanwhile, Han Solo is busting all manner of fancy maneuvers to escape the Imperial fleet
and he’s maybe even showing off a little
because he managed to con princess Leia into getting on board with him
along with Chewbacca and C3PO
(in case anyone needs to make a bunch of crazy yelling noises or be afraid of everything)
so Han is hauling ass away from the bad guys
but his hyperspace drive is broken
so he opts for the next best thing:
FLYING DIRECTLY INTO AN ASTEROID FIELD
AND THEN ACTUALLY INSIDE OF A HUGE ASTEROID
UP A GIANT SPACE-WORM’S ASS
AND THEN OUT OF ITS MOUTH
only he didn’t count on Darth Vader sending his entire fleet into the asteroid field
sustaining UNTOLD DAMAGE for the sake of four space-jerks in a broken ship
but he thinks fast
and instead of running away
he just charges straight for one of those imperial cruisers
and latches onto the back of one of the guard towers and pretends to be
like
a space barnacle
until the cruiser jettisons its garbage and then he just floats away with it
EXCEPT WHAT HAN SOLO DIDN’T COUNT ON
WAS BOBA FUCKING FETT
who is just some bounty hunter who sounds like Tom Waits trying to be mean over an intercom
but he also happens to be clever enough to follow Han and crew
all the way to their destination in someplace called CLOUD CITY
oh yeah, and Han and Leia have been totally making out this whole time.

MEANWHILE
Luke has crashed his plane in the middle of a swamp on Dagobah.
Wait what am I saying
this whole planet is a fucking swamp
why would a Jedi master willingly choose to live here? This is terrible.
Well, luke is clearly wondering the same thing
and he’s just settling down to eat some dinner
when this creepy green muppet shows up
and just blithely starts sticking its wrinkled proboscis into all the food
and not just food either
this little dude is just romping around, stealing Luke’s shit
and then just when Luke is about to punt his green dwarf face off
he’s like “MM
LOOKING FOR YODA, YOU ARE?
LEMME TALK REAL WEIRD AND STRING YOU ALONG FOR A WHILE
BEFORE ULTIMATELY REVEALING THAT THAT’S WHO I AM”
and Luke is like “Sounds good, Yoda.
Alright, listen
you seem perhaps even more radically stupid than Obi Wan
so I know you must be a formidable Jedi.
Will you teach me your stuff?”
and Yoda is like “Nope.
You are not chill enough.”
and Luke is like “Dude!
I am so chill though!
Watch, this is me being chill!”
and Obi Wan’s ghost is like “You know he’s right, Yoda
he is pretty chill”
and Yoda’s like “okay, fine
but if shit gets fucked up I am not taking responsibility.”

What follows is one of those training montages
in which yoda repeatedly insists that Luke use the force to lift stuff
while doing handstands.
the handstands seem to be crucial.
Then one day Yoda tells luke to go into a cave
luke starts to put on his weapons
but Yoda is like “nah man, you don’t need those”
and Luke is like “Now wait just a goddamn minute
every single piece of advice you robe-wearing
telekinesis-having disaster engines have given me
has been 100% certified terrible.
Pardon me if I don’t believe you when you say I don’t need weapons in the scary hole.”
HOLY SHIT
DID YOU SEE THAT GUYS?
FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THIS STORY
LUKE IS SHOWING THE FAINTEST STIRRINGS OF SOME CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS?
and it’s a good thing he brought his weapons, too
because you know who’s in that cave?
DARTH FUCKING VADER
so Luke kills him
but then Vader’s mask comes off and it’s actually LUKE’S OWN FACE
OHHHHH NOOOOOO LUKE WHAT HAVE YOU DONE
YOU CUT OFF YOUR FACE WITH A LASER SWORD
oh no wait it was just a hallucination or something

so long story short luke keeps training on Dagobah
until all of a sudden he’s like “OH NO
MY FRIENDS ARE IN DANGER.
I GOTTA GO SAVE THEM”
and Yoda is like “No dude, be chill”
and Luke is like “HOW CAN I BE CHILL WITH ALL THIS DANGER FLYING AROUND?”
and Yoda is like “Dude, if you go now
you will totally not be ready to defeat Darth Vader
and he’s going to make you his bitch
and then you might turn evil!”
and Luke is like “Hey:
Whatever”
and then he flies off in his spaceship.

MEANWHILE IN CLOUD CITY
Han Solo has landed at the home base of his old bro LANDO CALRIZZIAN
who so far wins best name in Star Wars.
Lando is an ex-smuggler/gambler
who has risen to the position of pimpmaster general of the mining operation on cloud city
I am not sure what they mine way the fuck up there
but it must be something good
because Lando has a sweet cape and an army of cyborg soldiers
and he is hitting on Leia so hard I am surprised she does not have a concussion.
Also C3PO makes himself useful
by immediately wandering off and getting exploded.

But so it turns out that Lando is a huge prick
who made a deal with Darth Vader
that if he turned in Han Solo, the Empire would leave Cloud City the fuck alone
so now Darth Vader is here, ruining everything
and everyone gets thrown in prison
including C3P0, who chewbacca found and partially rebuilt
and is carrying around in a kind of fishnet backpack.
But how did Darth Vader get here so fast, you ask?
Well, cause of Boba Fett
DUH
and Boba Fett wants Han Solo
so he can turn him over to that big slug Jabba the Hutt
the one Han owes a bunch of money to.
so they freeze-dry han solo
and lock everyone else up
and THIS IS WHEN LUKE ARRIVES

but here’s what luke doesn’t know:
Darth Vader totally set all this shit up just to trap him and turn him evil
Darth Vader spends a lot of time thinking about this shit
while encased in an evil black robot egg in his study
or else while talking to a giant wrinkled hologram head
basically what I am saying is that darth vader has laid a trap
and Luke Skywalker has just flown across the galaxy to stick his dick in it
and he’s really got no excuse
because when he gets to Cloud City
he catches a quick glimpse of Leia getting carted off
and she’s like “LUKE:
DUDE:
IT’S SO COMPLETELY A TRAP.”
But I guess Luke has really gotten into this whole not-listening-to-advice thing
having learned that his Jedi Masters are generally full of shit
so he figures Leia must be full of shit too
and he just walks right into the freeze-drying-dudes chamber
where Darth Vader is waiting for him

so they swing their laserdicks at each other for a while
and Darth Vader tries to get luke to be really evil
or at least fall in the freeze-dry pit
and then finally he’s just like “fuck it”
and he chops off Luke’s hand and he’s like “You know what?”
and Luke is like “Ow, What?”
and Vader is like “I’m your dad.”
and Luke is like “Bullshit.”
And Vader is like “No, for real though.”
and Luke is like “Well shit, why didn’t anybody tell me?”
and Vader is like “I dunno dude
that seems like the first thing you would tell somebody
who is about to go try to kill his dad.
But hey, come on
let’s go rule the galaxy together as father and son.
I can get you a sweet new robot hand
and you can have one of these weird masks too if you want
and we can get James Earl Jones to do your voiceover.
It’ll be great.”
And Luke is like “You know, actually I’m a little bit hurt
that all this time
my dad has been emperor of the galaxy
and yet you never bothered to call or write or anything.
We live in an era of faster than light travel.
What the fuck is wrong with you?
Thanks for the offer,
but I think I’d rather hurl myself blindly to my death in this pit we’re standing over.
DECISIONS!”

So Luke jumps off a bridge and falls down a bunch of tubes
and then he uses his telepathy to tell Leia to come get him in Han’s spaceship
because yeah, guess what?
While Luke was busy learning about family history
Chewbacca, C3PO, R2D2, Leia and even Lando Calrizzian all managed to escape
ON THEIR OWN
with nothing but their wits and Lando’s army of obedient cyborgs
so it looks like Luke hauled ass all the way across the galaxy and got his hand chopped off
FOR NOTHING
although i guess it’s not a big deal
because he gets a fully articulated robot hand in the very next scene
and everyone agrees that this is awesome
and that they will all meet up back on Tattooine in the next episode
to go get Han Solo out of deep freeze.

So the moral of the story
is that I guess blithely ignoring everyone’s warnings and advice
isn’t ALWAYS the way to go.

TO BE CONTINUED AGAIN

Okay so way back in the day
in a galaxy that is way the fuck out there
there is a big empty chunk of space
with a bunch of words flying through it
and the words are like “hey guys
you are about to see some star wars
these wars are because some guys called the Empire built a death star
which is the kind of star you build when you want to blow up other stars
and then they were like ‘hey, everyone else in the galaxy
we are going to blow you up with this thing if you don’t do what we say’
but then some other dudes were like ‘no way!
we’re going to blow up that thing you have instead!’
but it turns out the death star is pretty much invincible
so this chick named Princess Leia had to steal the plans for it
to bring them to the rebel dudes
but remember
the Empire has a fucking DEATH STAR
so they pretty much do whatever
and now they’re about to jack Princess Leia and fuck up her shit”
and then once everyone is up to speed on what’s going on
the floating text RECEDES INTO SPACE
to provide nomadic exposition to aliens in FAR OFF GALAXIES.

so then all of a sudden, here comes princess Leia on her ship
and all the Empire dudes are totally shooting it with guns and junk
and this dude Darth Vader busts in
totally goth’d out in his black cape and robot hands
and he’s like “YO PRINCESS LEIA
WHERE DA PLANS AT”
and Princess Leia is like “Haha, joke’s on you, I shoved them up a droid’s ass
and then shot the droid and his neurotic droid lover into space”
(the droid and his lover are named R2D2 and C3PO by the way)
and Darth Vader is like “FUCK
GIRL I AM ABOUT TO TORTURE YOU SO HARD”

okay so MEANWHILE, down on Tatooine
(the sweaty, sand-encrusted left-testicle of the galaxy)
R2D2 and C3PO have landed and they are supposed to find this dude named Obi Wan
or at least, R2D2 is supposed to find him
C3PO’s job is to be a little bitch in a hundred different languages
so obviously they have a little lover’s tiff and they split up
but then they both get captured by glowy-eyed midgets who sell them to a farm

now
this farm is not just any farm
because on this farm
they have
OUR PROTAGONIST
LUKE “SEXY-BOY” SKYWALKER
and Luke’s uncle, who owns the farm is like “BOY
GO CLEAN THESE STOLEN DROIDS I JUST BOUGHT”
and Luke is like “Aww mannn I was gonna go get ripped with my homies
I wish my dad wasn’t dead
I bet he would let me go get ripped with my homies”
and Luke’s uncle is like “That is the shittiest reason ever
to wish that your dad wasn’t dead”
and while they are talking shit at each other
R2D2 runs away and luke has to chase him(?)
and then he and C3PO and R2D2 all get ambushed by some sand people
who are just dudes who live in the sand and wear weird masks
but it’s okay because this rad wizard shows up and beats their asses
and then it turns out that it’s OBI WAN KENOBI
THE DUDE R2D2 WAS LOOKING FOR
HOW CONVENIENT

so Luke and Obi Wan and their robot pals go back to Obi Wan’s crib
and R2D2 disgorges all this information that princess leia stuffed into his face
oh by the way
you should know that R2D2 basically looks like a metal gumdrop skewered on a tripod
and each leg of the tripod has roller skates
(C3PO just looks like a shiny metal jackass)
anyway, this picture of Princess Leia shoots out of R2D2’s face
and it’s like “Hey Obi Wan
get this droid to my home planet of Alderaan
it has all manner of crucial plans on it and whatnot”
and Obi Wan
who is a rad wizard
but is also pretty old
is like “Well shit
if I am about to go on a wild intergalactic adventure
it might be nice to have some new, impressionable blood along for the ride
WHAT DO YOU SAY, LUKE?
and Luke is like “Dude
I just found out your real name like 10 minutes ago
and now you want me to go help you blow up something called the DEATH STAR?
My friend
that thing
has DEATH
RIGHT IN THE MOTHERFUCKING NAME.
Plus, I gotta, uh, help my uncle with the farm.
Sorry bro.
Next rebellion, maybe.”
and Obi wan is like “boy
fuck your uncle
fuck his farm
fuck not joining an incredibly dangerous intergalactic war
I’m a friend of your dad’s
and your dad was totally killed by that Darth Vader guy
so you should definitely risk your life to avenge him or something
here
have some weapons and my crazy space religion!”
WOW
OBI WAN IS SERIOUSLY THE WORST INFLUENCE.
HE’S LIKE THIS CRAZY HOBO WIZARD
WHO JUST HITS UP YOUNG MEN AND HANDS THEM LASER SWORDS AND RELIGIOUS DOCTIRNE

So Luke turns down this compelling offer
like any smart dude would
but then he jets home to grab a sandwich
only to be confronted by HIS UNCLE’S CHARRED CORPSE
cause yeah
looks like imperial troops beamed down and shot everything while Luke was out
It’s like these dudes are BEGGING Luke to come ruin their shit

So Luke goes back and finds Obi Wan and the robots
who are all busy burning a pile of midget corpses for some reason
and he’s like “Alright dude
Let’s go fight some space nazis.”

So Luke drives everybody to the spaceport in his sweet convertible
and Obi Wan immediately starts running around
proving what a fucking loose cannon he is.
first he mind controls some police officers
then he goes into a bar and cuts off some guy’s arm
and then he gets down to business
and starts hiring smugglers to take him to Alderaan
MY FRIENDS
WHY IS THIS GERIATRIC HERMIT SO GOOD AT CRIMES?
IF I SAID IT ONCE, I’LL SAY IT AGAIN:
LUKE SHOULD NOT BE HANGING OUT WITH THIS GUY.
but oh yeah
you want to hear about the smuggler:

HAN
FUCKING
SOLO
if there was a dickhead olympics
this guy would not be the gold medalist
he would not be the silver medalist
he would not be the bronze medalist
no,
if there were a dickhead Olympics
Han Solo would not even be in the competition
because someone would have ground him up and made him into DICKHEAD STEROIDS

so Obi Wan hires this jerk machine, along with his Armenian co-pilot, Chewbacca
which is really good for Han Solo
because he owes a lot of money to this giant slug named Jabba the Hutt
and in fact right after Obi Wan and Luke leave
one of Jabba’s dudes comes to kill Han
but Han just shoots some lasers out of his dick and then he leaves too
because he may be a twat
but he’s a twat with BALLS.
then everybody has to run away from more space nazis

MEANWHILE
Darth Vader and his posse are chilling on the death star
and everyone is like “DARTH VADER
MAYBE YOU SHOULD STOP TORTURING PRINCESS LEIA SO MUCH
THE GALACTIC SENATE WILL BE DISPLEASED”
and Darth Vader is like “FUCK A GALACTIC SENATE
DISSOLVE THAT SHIT
WE HAVE A GUN THAT BLOWS UP PLANETS.
COME ON”
Then he chokes some guy with his mind because he can

oh yeah, now would be a great time to explain Obi Wan’s crazy space religion
so basically there’s this thing called The Force
it’s like any other kind of mystical bullshit
except it lets you do stuff like brainwash the police and choke people with your mind.
Pretty much it is like Taoism but for CRIME.
Oh and Darth Vader is in this religion too.
It’s pretty much just Obi Wan and Darth Vader
great religion, guys.

So anyway, Darth Vader gets tired of torturing Princess Leia
so he brings her out of the torture room
and he’s like “hey
I just remembered I have a gun that explodes planets.
Tell me where the rebels are at or I will explode your planet.”
and Leia is like “Oh fuck
it’s uh
right over there.”
And Darth Vader is like “Thanks.
Still gonna blow up your planet, though.”
BOOM
SO COOOOL.

But here’s the thing
first of all, Leia totally lied about where the rebel base is
but second of all
Leia is from Alderaan
and that’s where Han Solo and the good ship Jerkass are headed right now
so they come out of hyperspace
(while Obi Wan is making Luke dodge lasers blindfolded
BECAUSE HE IS A TERRIBLE INFLUENCE)
they are right in the middle of a bigass asteroid field
which turns out to be the remains of Alderaan
and then they look to their left and OH NO
IT’S THE DEATH STAR
AND IT HAS THEM IN A TRACTOR BEAM

So now they’re on the Death Star
and they’ve gotta be real sneaky and wear disguises
and they figure out that if they can disable the beam they can leave
so Obi Wan drags his old ass off to do that alone for some reason
and then Luke notices that Princess Leia is in the dungeon
and he totally wants to bone her
because he saw her in that hologram back at the beginning
and you don’t get to pick and choose your spank bank material when you live on Tatooine
so he’s like LET’S GO GET THE PRINCESS
and Han Solo is like UH NO
and Luke is like SHE’S WAY RICH
and Han Solo is like SOLD
completely ignoring the fact
that how is princess leia gonna be rich
when the planet she is princess of JUST FUCKING EXPLODED
but anyway, Han and Luke and Chewbacca go to get the princess
and R2D2 and C3PO stay by the ship
to be a badass and a pussnexus respectively

So what Luke and Han do
is they dress up like some of the nazi dudes
and they pretend Chewbacca is their prisoner
and they take him all the way to the dungeon
and then they get impatient and shoot everyone
and someone calls the prison guards on the radio
to see if they’re ok
and Han Solo gets frustrated and just shoots the radio
which means that princess Leia and Han and everybody
have to jump into the trash chute to escape
and they’re going to get crushed
but R2D2 fixes it
because he has a metal dick that solves problems.

So then they’re all running back to the ship
and meanwhile Obi Wan has disabled the tractor beam
but then he kinda goes out of his way to find darth vader
so those dudes whip out their laserdicks and start slappin’
but Obi Wan has a secret
which is that he’s a crazy old man who wants to fucking die
so when Luke runs past and sees what’s up
Obi Wan straight DROPS HIS LIGHTSABER
and Darth Vader kills him
and Luke is like OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOO
and Han Solo is like GET ON THIS SHIP SO I CAN BANG THE PRINCESS

because see
here is the thing
Luke may have this nancy-boy puppy love thing going on
but from the moment they dragged her out of her prison cell
Leia was immediately and inextricably drawn into the orbit
of the binary star that is Han Solo’s two massive testicles
I mean all you gotta do
is listen to the insults these two lovebirds are hurling back and forth
to know that those two are gearing up for a legendary hatefuck.

ANYWAY
now they fly to the rebel base on the moon of some planet somewhere
and they deliver the droids with the plans
and they figure out the death star’s ONLY WEAKNESS
which is a tiny exhaust pipe at the ass end of a trench bathed in lasers.
Some people say it’s stupid that the death star has this weakness
but I think if you build a spaceship the size of a planet
you’re doing pretty good
if you can get your crucial structural flaws down to ONE METER SQUARE.
But luke doesn’t give a fuck
he is absolutely convinced that he can do this
because he used to fly a crop duster or some shit back on Tattoine
All he needs is a few weeks to train with his fighter squadron and
OH SHIT WHAT IS THIS
IT LOOKS LIKE DARTH VADER PUT A TRACKING DEVICE ON HAN SOLO’S SHIP
AND NOW SHIT IS APPROACHING THE FAN AT NEAR-LIGHT-SPEED.

So everybody gets in their spaceships and goes to blow up the death star
and this may come as a shock to you guys
(I know it came as a shock to me)
but I find space battles pretty fucking boring
so lemme give you the rundown:
pretty much all the rebels die
and Darth Vader makes the dumb decision to come fly a space fighter himself
and then Luke goes to go shoot the exhaust pipe
and he’s almost there
when the ghost of Obi Wan shows up
and tells him to CLOSE HIS EYES AND DISABLE HIS TARGETING COMPUTER.
MY FRIENDS:
WHAT DO I KEEP SAYING ABOUT OBI WAN KENOBI
and then Darth Vader is about to shoot Luke
but Han Solo shows up and saves him with guns
conveniently blasting Darth Vader clear of the death star
which Luke somehow manages to destroy despite Obi Wan’s interference
and then everyone gets medals and Han is on the fast track to some Princess Poontang
and it’s all thanks to Obi Wan
…somehow

So I guess the moral of the story
is that just because someone lives alone in the desert
makes a habit of passing out powerful beam weapons to teens
subscribes to an archaic religion with fantastic potential for abuse
is intricately familiar with the criminal underworld
and is prone to random bouts of suicide
doesn’t mean they’ll necessarily make a bad mentor.

TO BE CONTINUED

Okay so there’s this planet full of superheroes and it’s going to explode
You’d think that if they were so great they would have figured out a way to not explode
but you shouldn’t complain
because their loss is our gain
in the form of SUPERMAN

okay actually he’s not called superman yet
that would be stupid on a planet where everybody is super
except actually I think none of them have superpowers
and they are only activated by the particular color of earth’s sun for some reason
but anyway I guess baby superman is important or special or something
(he’s named Kal El though, which I think is what Sean Penn named HIS kid)
so his parents put him on a rocketship and shoot him towards a planet
that has a pretty good track record
of hating anyone even remotely different from themselves
we call it
EARTH

so superman crashes in the middle of the most xenophobic part of kansas
and he gets picked up by these two old people
and they don’t want to piss of the freaky space baby so they make it their own
and anyway I think they’re both sterile from radiation poisoning at this point
because the spaceship superman crashed in is like covered in kryptonite
which superman is totally allergic to
so bad luck, huh?
but anyway they raise him
and they eventually figure out shit is fucked up when he starts lifting tractors
and he gets bored of his shitty podunk parents and kicks the shit out of his high school
and flies to mars or New York or something
and gets a job as a dude who punches people in the face
and shoots them with his laser vision and he can fly
honestly I don’t know why he didn’t just become the world’s biggest asshole
except wait
he totally does
because eventually he gets bored of being better than everyone
and he builds himself a big sadtimes igloo at the north pole
like a red and blue murdersanta
and then he hangs out there
and later the US government hires him to kill batman
but he fucks it up somehow
even though batman is just a regular dude
and superman is FUCKING SUPERMAN.

so the moral of the story
is that we are all on the wrong planet
because somewhere out there
there is a flavor of sun that turns us all into tractor-lifting dick machines.

The end.