An Open Letter to the Period

Dear Period,

In case this letter got sent to the wrong Period, I would just like to make it clear that this letter is addressed to the womanly type of period, not the punctuation type.

Now that that’s over with, I’ll begin. Period, I understand that nothing I can say or do can really change the fact that I have to deal with you…deal with you, or a fetus growing inside me.

Badasses in History: Winston Churchill

Rumor has it that Churchill fathered his successor to the throne of Badassery, Morty Schapiro

The study of history is, in many ways, the study of humanity. From kings and heroes to slaves and cowards, history provides us with an unrivaled view into the inner workings of the human mind.

But never has any historical figure kicked quite as much ass as Winston Churchill.

Let’s start off by investigating what the man had to work with. On the pros side, he was born the grandson of the seventh Duke of Marlborough. Aristocratic blood? Check. He was enrolled in the best schools. Education? Check. He was a brilliant politician. Acumen? Check. Oh, he also beat the Nazis. Awesomeness? Check.

Now for the cons. That school he was in? He hated it and got bad grades. Good GPA? Not check. He was fat…and rude…and a bit of a drunk. Winning personality? Not check. At the time of his political achievements, he faced a weak parliament and a weaker aristocracy. Strong support system for confronting foreign difficulties and interacting with the power-hungry, vicious Nazis? Not check.

The man was born with five-pound jowls

So to recap: Winston Churchill was born rich, but balked at any attempts to civilize him beyond what was required to find and light cigars, and—who could forget?— jimmy open the liquor cabinet. He then went off to the Royal Military College where he had the option of enrolling in either the cavalry or the infantry. He chose the cavalry. Why? Because it had a lower grade requirement and he hated math. Here was a man who had his priorities straight.

At that point, his father asked that he transfer to the infantry, to which I can only presume Winston replied: “Suck it.” Whatever his exact words, he stayed in the cavalry for some time until he got bored—again I can only assume because he was too bitching at everything for his regiment to handle—at which point he became a journalist and war-correspondent. Even more awesome (if such a thing could be possible) Churchill then went to Cuba to follow a conflict between Spain and the Cuban rebels, where he learned about cigars. His response was reportedly to blow smoke in the face of the Spanish General Ramon de Not-As-Mind-Blowing-as-Churchill. As history has taught us, this ended the war then and there.

But while his early life was too grandiose for words, it was Churchill’s later life that cemented his place as history’s greatest badass. You see, Churchill’s greatest quality was this: he was fucking hilarious. Yes, Churchill played a central role in the defeat of the Axis powers and the preservation of Great Britain beyond the bombing of London. But all of that nonsense pales in comparison to his rollicking contributions to insult comedy.

This image was captured moments after Churchill listed off the gut-wrenchingly filthy sexual activities he had engaged in with Stalin's mother

Though Churchill’s insults can — and do — fill entire books, some of them stick as even more groin-grabbingly funny than others. When asked about his opinion of Neville Chamberlain (who some of you may remember as the dickwad who tried appeasing the Nazis as British Prime Minister before Churchill), Old Winston had this to say: “He looked at foreign affairs through the wrong end of a municipal drainpipe.” In other words: “That dude is a shitface.”

On cultured people, tubby had this to say: “Cultured people are merely the glittering scum which floats upon the deep river of production.” What a baller.

Still, as funny as Churchill was in general, he had two particular adversaries with whom he had supreme moments of insulting hilarity: Lady Nancy Astor, member of Parliament and second-class comic, and playwright George Bernard Shaw.

We’ll start with Shaw. Both intellectuals (Shaw of the kind that actually does things of artistic and literary merit, and Churchill of the kind that makes fun of those things), the two often enjoyed exchanging witticisms. Shaw, no real fan of Churchill’s, thought it might be funny to send Winston a pair of tickets to Shaw’s newest play, Major Barbara. Accompanying the tickets was a short note: “Have reserved two tickets for opening night. Bring a friend, if you have one.”

Now, at this point, any lesser man would have accepted the truly hilarious burn at face value. Not Chubby Churchill. He wired back—in a moment where even God himself spit out his top ramen in laughter—”Cannot possibly come first night, will attend second, if there is one.”

Awesome.

Onto adversary number two: Lady Astor. The two had a long legacy of mocking one another, Astor for Churchill’s rampant alcoholism and obesity, Churchill for Astor’s general bitchiness. Who can forget this exchange:

He usually only needed one of those fingers to properly express himself

Astor: If you were my husband, I’d poison your tea.
Churchill: Madam, if you were my wife, I’d drink it.

Again, awesome. But these clashes of wits pale in comparison to a later insult. One particular evening, Churchill came to a party visibly drunk and irate, so much so that a Mrs. Bessie Braddock quite publicly remarked, “Mr. Churchill, you are drunk!” But Winston, drunk or not, knew a challenge when he heard one. After shouting “Challenge Accepted!” he looked the offending woman in the eye (or chest, as Churchill was not one for manners) and said: “Yes, and you, Madam, are ugly but tomorrow I shall be sober and you will still be ugly.”

So yeah, no one rocked the house like Winston.

Some more Churchill insults for your consideration:

• Young man (after seeing Churchill leave the bathroom without washing his hands): At Eton they taught us to wash our hands after using the toilet.
  Churchill: At Harrow they taught us not to piss on our hands.
• [Referring to Arthur Balfour] If you wanted nothing done at all, Balfour was the man for the job.


The British Prime Minister after single-handedly clearing Juno Beach during D-Day

• Churchill: Madam, would you sleep with me for five million pounds?
  Woman: My goodness, Mr. Churchill… Well, I suppose… we would have to discuss terms, of course…
  Churchill: Would you sleep with me for five pounds?
  Woman: Mr. Churchill, what kind of woman do you think I am?!
  Churchill: Madam, we’ve already established that. Now we are haggling about the price.

And now for the winner:

• [Referring to Charles De Gaulle] He looks like a female llama who has been surprised in the bath.

–Josh Kopel

Hate a Random Country: Brazil

Here at Sherman Ave, we take great pride in our irrational xenophobic rants about seemingly random (yet indisputably heinous) nations. But in light of recent events, we have recently come to believe that Brazil is such a flaming conglomeration of fecal matter of a country that it deserves to be called out as the nation of jackasses it really is. Fuck them.

With God on our side, America conquered

For most of the world, the USA-Brazil Women’s World Cup Game on July 10th, 2011 was their first introduction to how abhorrently vile Brazil is as a nation. The play of the women from the Federative Republic of Brazil, the only country that could possibly be worse than a commonwealth comprised solely of FIFA referees, merely typified the country’s flagrantly inferior and odious nature. Instead of simply bowing down to America’s soccer superiority, even despite the USA Women hailing from a country that follows the sport with slightly more interest than the game of sky ball, the Brazilians instead decided to force the Americans to break out their overflowing reserves of defiance and tenacity in order to give the nation the athletic bitch-slapping it deserved.

In one shocking example of Brazil’s proud spirit of douchiness, Brazilian defender Erika faked an injury with only 6 minutes left in extra time, only to spring off her stretcher once a sufficient amount of time had been sapped from the clock and the crowd was sufficiently convinced of the Samba Queens’ astounding bitchiness (also leaving me wondering that if Brazilian women are so good at faking, then how much have all those sexy Brazilian women I’ve been cavorting with really enjoyed my love-making capabilities?). But Karma is even worse of a tramp than Brazil’s Marta, allowing Abby Wambach and Hope Solo to lead the man-down American team in a glorious come back that prevented the South American nation of 190 million wankers from thinking they were any better than the scum of the earth that they are.

The nations inhabitants, fleeing to a better country where they can make a living outside of the oppressive supermodel industry

But as any Brazilian expert knows, the country’s ass-clown nature extends far beyond the soccer pitch. The nation’s flag, featuring a celestial blue orb inside a yellow rhombus inside a green rectangle, totally blows. A South Sudanese child soldier could have designed a better one for his own fledgling nation. Their President, Dilma Rousseff, is a notorious twatmuffin who reminds me of a combination of Casey Anthony and a drilldo. Other notable fuckballs from the country include soccer superstar Ronaldo and dictator Getùlio Vargas, both of whom were pompous douchebags unworthy of the ground they walked on (they also ended sentences in prepositions to showcase their hubris). Even the country’s language displays Brazil’s absurd awfulness, seeing as Portuguese is really more like drunken Spanish than an actual language of its own.

To be fair, Brazil has produced some good in the world. But besides Brazilian waxing and Adriana Lima, I’m kind of drawing blanks. Otherwise, Brazil is nothing more than a country of dickwads determined to ruin the rest of the world and the 2016 Olympic games with their crime, poverty, and Jersey-like levels of shittiness.

UPDATE: We have recently been notified that, besides producing Brazilian waxing and Adriana Lima, Brazil was also responsible for producing the magnificent wonder that is Chenny Ng, hosting Ms. Ng for an important duration of her formative years. Sherman Ave regrets this error, as Chenny is quite possibly one of the greatest humans in the world, and can guarantee that whoever was responsible for this heinous mistake has been punished accordingly.