The Evil would like you to ponder the above picture of a sign taped to the door of the men’s room in his office. (And before you begin bitching about the blurriness, note that this picture was taken on Evil’s iPhone. It’s not like he was going to traipse into the john with his dSLR.)

Now let’s close in a little, get a tight shot of the illustration and focus in on the reason the Evil (or anyone) would be taking pictures in a bathroom that didn’t involve that unbelievably long and intact turd you just dropped in the toilet. (You have got to win that bet!) And . . . there:

Cute little germs, ain’t they? Especially the eyestalk guy sporting a flamethrower, bottom right. They’re even kind of sexy—by the logic of our times—right? This sign is roughly equivalent to what would happen if you replaced the trillion fiendish spiders of Arachnophobia with adorable puppies. (And yes, we’re accepting less-dated pop culture references here at the Evil. Just queue up at the window to your left.) Those germs just look like they’re playfully gnawing at your hand with their harmless little puppy teeth, no?

But perhaps the illustrator had something more devious in mind when he drew these sexy germs. Perhaps s/he, like the Evil, realizes this obsession with sterilizing every touchable surface, including our bodies, with space-age antibacterial goop is only giving evolution a goose and creating a race of überbacteria that will soon consume us all. And he was trying to subtly alert us to the fact that not all germs will stone-cold kill ya.

You need a little filth in your life, people. This is a scientistic fact—children raised in an environment which stinks of industrial-grade cleaner are much more vulnerable to bacteria and viruses of all stripe. Without the little doses of everyday scum, how can you build up a tolerance?

Which is not to say the Evil doesn’t wash his hands after doing his bathroom business. But he doesn’t fondle every object in his visual spectrum with Lysol deathwipes, either. The Evil believes in the five-second rule—still, in this day and age!—especially if the foodstuff dropped to the floor is wrapped in precious, precious bacon.

And yet . . .

Here’s the question Evil poses to you: in a world where everyone else is violently sterilizing themselves, does it even matter if you take a principled stand against paranoia? If you’re one of the dwindling number of reasonable people in this world who does not, in fact, rub the dirt off your shoulder, do you stay strong . . . or give up, because the superbug is coming whether you want it or not, thanks to your germophobe “friends?”

Recently, several FOE bands have created Kickstarter campaigns to fund their projects. In case you don’t know, Kickstarter is a kind of online clearing-house for donations toward a new album, van, installation piece . . . whatever you want to ask people to give you money for. If your project doesn’t meet the funding goal, no one’s bank account is hit. If it does, your donators are charged and then showered with rewards in this and, surely, the next life. Like a picture of me as the cover of your album. Hint hint, Modern Skirts. I suggest this one:

Or one free bank heist using the van your small contribution helped to fund. (Looking at you, the HEAP.)

Who knows what the Kickstarter people get out of this. As one who invokes “karma” only as a tool of grudging acceptance when he is cornered into performing some act of goodwill, the Evil chooses to believe these Kickstarter folk aren’t doing it for the joy of seeing artists and whatnot fulfill (the financial elements of) their dreams. Probably something involving skimming microamounts of cash off the top to fund some sort of death ray. Because that’s what the Evil would do.

Really, the only dilemma is whether to mount said ray on a satellite locked in geosynchronous orbit ‘round Earth or in the scooped-out guts of a dormant volcano. Maybe it seems obvious, from a funding standpoint—even with advances in budget rocket technology and the availability of private launches, getting a satellite-mounted death ray into space isn’t a cheap proposition. But then, you try building the pneumatic lift needed to hoist the death ray over a steaming caldera for less than ten million bucks. Six of one, half a dozen of the other, no?*

* “Six of one, half a dozen of the other” is, by the way, a brilliant phrase. It nestles snugly in that perfect zone of cliché-ty. On the one hand, it can be said so often and in so many situations that it has been rendered virtually meaningless. Just try it. Someone asks you where you want to eat lunch? Shrug and spit, “Eh, six of one . . .” You will be lightly scorned for sucking down precious oxygen to spew into the world yet more conversational filler. On the other hand, this cliché hasn’t become so infuriatingly ubiquitous that your friends will yearn to punch you in the face for uttering it. Perfect.**

** For an example of a cliché worthy of a public pummeling, see “It is what it is.” Or “Not so much.”

Anywho. The Evil isn’t ready to Kickstart the ol’ death ray campaign. But when he is, just know that he appreciates your contribution with all his black heart. And that you will be among Lil’ Deathy’s first targets.

Recently the National Evil realized this site lacked a crucial element common—perhaps lifegiving—to most of the ten trillion articles, columns, rants, interviews, YouTube confessionals, and recipes on the web: vitriol!

That’s right: you ain’t writing if you ain’t complaining, preferably about something universal to our society that there is no, I say again no, chance of changing.

Sure, sure, Evil has inveighed against the use of the “sexy” to describe nonsexy things. And about all those song titles that lie to us. But in general, you well know that the National Evil is a constant spuming fountain of optimism and good cheer.

No more! Beginning today, I channel my inner octooctogenarian (that would be the eight-limbed senior citizen festering in my heart) and damn the modern world and all it comprises!

Topic #1: Invitation Frustration. (Damn you, rhyming topics!)

Herewith, I damn thee, world, because . . .

Today, as opposed to even five years ago, inviting people to do things has become an infinite pain in the ass. And, like our universe, its painintheassitude is only expanding. To be absolutely sure you’ve done all you can, you must now email, Facebook, e-vite, and text message the entire list. And even then, there will be people complaining, “I had no idea you were getting married! Why didn’t you twitter me? That’s what I check.”

It gets worse. (But what doesn’t in this damnable modern world? Woe! woe! and woe! again to thee, modern world!) Granted all these modes of communication, people now expect to be invited. Not too long ago, if you missed your phone call or email, you just shrugged it off and said, “Oops, I missed you. No biggie.”

Now? Oh no. People’s precious “feelings”* are hurt if you don’t hire a private investigator to find them and haul them bodily to your party/wedding/bat mitzvah (what, you didn’t know bats are Jewish?) no matter where they are or what they’re doing. Regardless of what you do, someone will feel “left out” because you didn’t stand outside their house throwing rocks at their window to let them know. And if you send more than one invitation, the people who know they’re going to come get annoyed.

You cannot win. So do not play! Hunker down in your hermitage! Forsake all human contact!

Until next time—damn you, modern world!

(*Note that the Octooctogenerain Evil puts things he finds stupid in “quotes.” He’s a pill, that one.)

. . . And now we receive word that some production house called “Gladden Entertainment” is developing a remake of Mannequin. As a coworker and FOE plaintively cried while yanking out locks of her own hair: “Seriously, they’re going to remake that movie? WHY???”

Evil is tempted to retort: “Because they’re finally running out of ‘80s movies to remake.” But if that were so, where’s my Adventures In Babysitting reboot? (Evil sees this as a perfect vehicle for a Lindsey Lohan comeback role in a gritty, monochrome re-envisioning of the movie for our times.)

io9 has a fun breakdown of what we should expect—nay, demand—from any Mannequin remake. But here at the Evil, things skew less to the fun and more to the . . . hmm . . . aberrant? Yeah, that’ll work.

As you know, National Evil Movie Pitchery^® (a.k.a. NEMP^®) has produced an unquestionably stupendous run of ideas bursting Athena-like from the Evil’s Zeuslike brow. But today calls for an exception, in which the Evil offers his NEMPing services to a project already in production . . . and brings you:

Mannequillers

. . . Because, let’s face it, why hasn’t there been a movie about killer mannequins? (And if there has, maybe some low budget mid-70s movie lampooned by MST3K . . . well, fie on you for knowing that.) Hey, what’s scarier than a doll come to life? (You don’t have to say “any clown.” Evil knows.) A giant doll! You can even keep the romantic element to draw in the lay-days.

You take your basic elements from the original—Andrew McCarthy-esque everyman meets hottie mannequin come-to-life (starring Lindsey Lohan in her big comeback role!). She seduces him . . . but not for love. No: she needs our hero to unleash an ancient Gypsy curse that will animate all mannequins—and place them under her power. After releasing the mannequin horde, our hero desperately rushes to stop his one true love before she takes revenge on all mankind!

. . . Because, um, animated mannequins feast on human brains to, you know, stay animated?

OK, it’s a reach. Maybe this entire Mannequin reboot idea is just a bad one all around. What say you?

Today’s question: can you really dub yourself “The National Evil” if you can’t hate worth a damn?

I was forced to ponder this while watching the ramp-up to the NFC Divisional Playoff Game (now there’s a ponderous title) pitting the Minnesota Vikings against the hated Dallas Cowboys. (Note: Evil’s loathing for the Cowboys is documented here. And in hundreds of journal pages ye shall never read.)

As game time approached, I noticed I wasn’t as disgusted by ESPN’s fawning Cowboy coverage as I always had been. And once the game began, I realized with the distressing lack of a sinking feeling that the furnace of fury in my soul had failed to sputter to life and direct raw, unfettered hatred Dallas-ways.

Apparently I don’t hate the Cowboys anymore. This after lambasting them less than 24 hours before game time. And I don’t know why.

It’s not as if my heart grew three sizes while watching the game. I don’t suddenly heart the Cowboys. It’s just that I no longer spleen them.

I suppose my feelings for them can best be personified in the form of their coach, Wade Phillips, a good-natured, doughy potato-sack of a man. He looks like he should be squinting at your power meter outside your house and relating unasked-for fishing anecdotes to all comers. You can’t hate that guy.

Of course, most people bypass Wade as the face of the organization in favor of owner Jerry Jones, who has his share of hate-able qualities, to be sure. But I kind of like it that he installed a high-definition screen seven stories tall in his new stadium. That melds nicely with one of the Evil’s founding principles: If you’re going to do something, why not stupidly overdo it?

Who else? As for the players, there’s not a T.O. or a Michael Irvin in sight. QB Tony Romo made himself an easy target, what with his backward-cap-wearing, Jessica-Simpson-dating M.O. But he seems to have dropped all that this year.

I once owned a pure, beautiful hatred for the Florida State Seminoles, back when they were winning all the time and Bobby Bowden could apparently get away with running a corrupt program because he said things like “goldurnit!” and “dadgum!” in interviews. I hated them more than I liked any other team. But my hatred petered out along with their success on the field, and as Bowden took to wearing granny glasses on the sidelines. As the ‘Noles lost it, so too did the Evil. You can’t hate on such a pitiful spectacle of decline.

And maybe that’s the deal with the Cowboys. They aren’t good enough to hate anymore. Which is why, as of this moment, the Evil is root, root, rooting for your Dallas Cowboys to win Super Bowl XLV!

. . . And just to make sure the flames of my hatred are restoked, I’m demanding even more: for the Cowboys to achieve a perfect season. For the Dallas D to unleash a season-ending injury on a universally beloved figure. (Can’t think of a worthy player? Then how about this: Tony Dungy.) For Jerry Jones to get another facelift that pulls his eyes over the top of his own head. For Jerry to upgrade his giant-ass screen so they broadcast in 3D, then make already-paying customers pony up for 3D glasses. For Tony Romo to date, then cruelly break up with, Jennifer Aniston (this one’s for the ladies).

Don’t just do it, Cowboys: stupidly overdo it!

Evil needs this, Pokes. Don’t let me down.

No, no . . . we’re not talking John the Baptist vs. St. Paul. Yes, once again, Evil dips into the bottomless well of Beatle and Beatle-related trivia for today’s exercise.

Last week, Stephen Colbert joked that you may experience a seasonal malady whereby you find yourself repeatedly hearing “Wonderful Christmastime” by Paul McCartney. Now, the Evil is fairly cool (and occasionally complicit) with the punchlinification of Paul’s career, life, and music, the gears of which spin on the shaft of the Lennon-McCartney schism. But today Evil steps forth to remind you of one thing:

If we’re going to lightly rag Paul’s holiday contribution, just remember that “Wonderful Christmastime” is infinitely, infinitely superior to John’s own Christmas tune. Because, though you might never have considered it before, “Happy Xmas (War is Over)” is a horrible song.

Not saying “Wonderful Christmastime” ranks ups there with a “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” or “Christmas in Hollis”, but “Happy Xmas” is insufferable. It might in fact represent the nadir of Lennon’s music. Firstly, it just sounds like a stereotypical Christmas song. Replete with a keening children’s chorus, for Chrissakes. (Plus Yoko wailing in there.) You would know “Happy Xmas” is a Christmas song even if you couldn’t hear the vocal track—this coming from our would-be musical avant-garde savior. Lennon bumping up its keepin-it-real quotient by slapping in “Xmas” (oh no you dint!) and the parenthetical anti-war citation doesn’t help. It’s as if he knew he’d written four minutes of schlock and was desperate to redeem it. Mission failed, John.

“Wonderful Christmastime,” on the other hand, except for the “Ding dong, ding dong, ding dong” part, could be any song. It even has that goofy/cool ‘80s keyboard sound. Lift out the lyrics and it could nestle snugly into “Pipes of Peace.” And there’s the added bonus that it’s just what it needs to be—a slight, sentimental Christmas tune that doesn’t lunge for something it can’t and shouldn’t be.

One last point: both songs have been covered by a variety of execrable artists. But Paul’s holiday opus has not, to the best of my knowledge, been ravaged by the wretched pipes of one Celine Dion. That should just about wrap up this exercise, no?

Enjoy the holidays. If possible, hang your stockings with care. Remember: carelessly hung stockings falling into fireplaces is the number twenty-seventh leading cause of house fires.

One of the most unfortunate aspects of modern life is the inexorable leakage of illiterospeak into everyday use. “U” for “you,” that kind of thing. While one could trace this tendency back to Prince (“I Would Die 4 U,” “Nothing Compares 2 U,” et. al.), it obviously exploded with the advent of text messaging. Soon illiterospeak crept into email subject lines, then the subject matter itself. And so on.

I don’t actually have a problem with illiteranguage itself, not on its own merits. What I bemoan is how this revolution, crawling from the bottom of basic comprehension, threatens a longstanding goal of those of us perched at the top: reformation of the English language!

When George Bernard Shaw is pressing us to fundamentally alter the mother tongue—well, we don’t, but at least we shake our heads gravely and say, “Something really should be done.” But when tweens are leading the charge, we instead grit our teeth and cling ever more tightly to the Y and O that jumped the line in front of U hundreds of years ago. U gets no justice. U gets no love. (Not to be confused with Queen’s English hardliner Faith Evans’s “You Gets No Love.”)

Is the National Evil the one to lead the charge into a brighter, simpler era of English? Nope. It’s not like you bastards followed the Evil when he lead the charge for uniform microwave keypad standards. (Wait, did I cover that yet?)

But today I would like to propose one tiny change to the language. I invite you to join me in changing the spelling of “wrong” to “rong.”

Why? Well, isn’t there a delicious irony in the fact that “rong” is, in fact, rong? Writing “rong” by its very nature amplifies the rongness of that which you are calling rong.

Think about it this way: when “fuck” began to lose its offensive luster, we felt compelled to add “mother.” And it can only be a matter of time—weeks, methinks—before even that will lose its power. At that point we’re all going to be saying “grandmotherfucker.” And no one wants that.

But by simply dropping the superfluous W from “rong,” we augment its power for at least another decade. And when that wears off, we’ll simply change it to “rawng.” And after that, it’s right back to “wrong.” Perfection!

Who’s with me?

Evil isn’t much of a basketball fan, and I’ve never been to Britain. But I am a fan of cultural collisions (so long as they fall into the “comedic” and not “genocidal” category). Thus, I was pleased to stumble on this article in BusinessWeek describing the NBA’s sly horning-in on the British sports fan’s loyalty, presumably while mean ol’ football hooligan isn’t looking. Maybe he’s puking in the alley behind the pub?

Anywho, what’s interesting about this article isn’t the subject matter. It’s the perspective. Because this piece wasn’t written by an American, but by a British journalist for a British audience that knows squat about basketball. So naturally he drops familiar words and phrases into his descriptions—the same way an American journalist would describe the pitch as the “field” and the side as the “team.” And the hooligans as “soccer moms.” And that’s how you get bloody delightful descriptions such as:

Luol Deng, the Sudan-born Briton, has made a break and gained the best part of five metres on the Jazz defence [...]

“The best part of five metres.” Love it.

Even better is this gem:

Overseas pre-season friendlies such as the Bulls-Jazz game, which Deng’s team won by a single point right at the death, is a key part of this.

Why don’t we call preseason games “friendlies?” And more importantly (and more topical for a blog called the National Evil) . . . why in the bloody hell don’t we call the end of a game THE DEATH?!

I think we can all agree that “at the death” is infinitely cooler than “at the buzzer,” “at the bell,” or, for Evil’s sake, “at the end of regulation.”

Enjoy the weekend. If possible, stage a pre-season friendly with someone you care about. Just be discreet.

This edition of

Song Titles That LIE

is devoted to the lyingest LIARS of all, the Beatles. You can fuddle our minds with your Rock Band, rob us even blinder with your remasters (stereo and mono) . . . but Evil is watching you, Beatles. Both here and in the hereafter. There is no escape. Herewith.

“I’m Happy Just to Dance With You” (A Hard Day’s Night): Come on. Come on. We’ve heard all the blather about “a more innocent time”, but even in 1964, no guy was happy “just” to dance with a woman. Unless “dance” was a euphemism for acts of incredible naughtiness in ’64? Baby Boomers, let us know!

“Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby” (Beatles For Sale): This might be less of an outright LIE than a cruel joke on a bandmate. I mean, you could see this being at least somewhat plausible had John sang it, maybe Paul . . . but to hand over lead-singing duties for this song to Ringo? Informal polling indicates that less than 7% of “everybody” has ever shown any interest in being Ringo’s baby. So, what? Were the other guys still hazing poor Ringo by album four?

“All You Need Is Love” (Magical Mystery Tour): As an iconic figure to so many young people in the ’60s, John Lennon should be pilloried for such a recklessly irresponsible song. How many stoned Beatles-worshippers starved, thirsted, or suffocated to death after taking in and believing this song? You need more than love, people. The average human can only survive two weeks without food, two days without water, and about four minutes without air. But love? Pfff. The Evil has gone entire months without being overwhelmed by his crippling need to be loved by everyone on the planet.

“You Never Give Me Your Money” (Abbey Road): If you’re anything like the Evil, you drove to the record store, picked up this album, purchased it, returned to your car with a happy spring in your step . . . and then flipped it over, read the track listing, came upon this title, this LIE, and retched. Then stormed back into the store, demanded your money back, were rebuffed, began shrieking at the top of your lungs, and were finally tasered. Just . . . just for them to so blatantly mock you with their LIE . . . it’s inconceivable.

“We Can Work It Out” (Double A-Side with “Day Tripper”): Also known as “the customer’s revenge for the mockery of ‘You Never Give Me Your Money.’” We can work it out, can we? Ahem. Allow the Evil to direct you to 1971 and Mr. McCartney’s lawsuit aiming at the dissolution of the Beatles. You can LIE to everyone, Beatles. Even to yourself. But it won’t save you.

Ambrose Bierce, he of The Devil’s Dictionary and “An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge”—which has lured adolescent writers into the dream sequence/surprise ending dead-end for over a century now—was also a book critic. A critic who produced the single greatest review ever. One sentence, nine words:

“The covers of this book are too far apart.”

I never thought I’d read another critique of such brisk majesty. One that communicated everything you could possibly need to know about the work of art or product in question. One forged from a hardy dram of contempt, then quenched by the critic’s unwillingness to waste more than a breath spewing his disdain.

Too many critics spend their reviews trying to impress the reader with their own wit and/or comprehensive grasp of the medium in question. Nowhere is this more grating than in the no-man’s-land of the Amazon customer review. I don’t require your five-paragraph summary of Victorian erotica leading into how it relates to the current crop of urban vampire novels. Really—is this the best use you’ve found for your M.A. in English Lit? If so, I would suggest you make a career one-eighty and seek your destiny as, oh, a soldier of fortune.

But sometimes—sometimes!—a reviewer produces a work both pleasingly brief and achingly poignant. And today, the National Evil found a critique every bit the equal of Bierce’s classic. Maybe superior, as this one requires less than half the words Bierce required. Without further ado:

“Pubic hair in packaging.”

Need I (or the reviewer) say more? (To be fair, now, the product in question wasn’t sold by Amazon itself, but by a third-party vendor.) Evil won’t reveal the identity of the item—I leave it to you to find this little miracle for yourself.

In the meantime, however, here’s the logical follow-up. Say you found a pube in your packaging. How much would the product you ordered have to be worth for you NOT to return it in horror and disgust?