Things That Rock: Republicans

Good to see you again. Sorry that it’s been so long since I last made you laugh, but I’ve had a tumultuous couple of weeks. You see, ever since I stole away from my monastery in the middle of the night (no, that ‘Brother’ in my name isn’t random) armed only with a box of tagalongs Peanut Butter Patties and a pair of hook swords, I have been mercilessly pursued by a cadre of cyborg zombie ninjas hell-bent on forcing me back to the monastery where I would be forced to eat beets and contemplate Godel Escher Bach alongside the other monks for the rest of eternity. Hell no. But now that I’m safely holed up in a top-secret bunker located miles beneath Ayers Rock, I’m free to write another article!

I'll miss this woman.

Luckily for all you raging optimists, this one is about something that’s awesome, as opposed to something that’s terrible. Even better, it’s about a ‘diamond in the rough’ sort of awesomeness that can be hard to appreciate if you take it too seriously.* In other words: this year’s Republican presidential primaries.

The GOP candidates (or as I like to call them, Mitt & Friends) have been so ubiquitous in our culture these last few months that I’m sure your mind was assailed with a flood of images and quotes and feelings as soon as you saw those words. Maybe they’ve made you angry or sad or scared for the future of America. But hell, they were entertaining, weren’t they?

Yes they were. Especially once it became clear that turds like Michele Bachmann had no chance of making the cut, it was fun to kick back and watch Rick Perry metaphorically poop himself on live TV or listen to Herman Cain quote the Pokemon movie after his past as a serial rapist was revealed.

Here’s how I parlayed the possible terror of these primaries into something enjoyable: Imagine you went in for a routine dentist checkup. You expect it to be as routine and uneventful as it always is when you go in for these appointments every four years, but surprise! Your dentist finds deep rot in some of your teeth. A root canal’s the only thing for it. Shit, you’ve got a nonrefundable one-way ticket to of the most infamously painful procedures ever conceived by doctors. Begin the nervous freakout.

What else to say about the awesomeness of the GOP primaries?

That root canal diagnosis (and the crippling fear that accompanied it on your part) was Bachmann winning the Ames Straw Poll, or perhaps Perry’s entry into the campaign as a veritable behemoth of money and charisma and prayer, plus former pizza CEO Herman Cain making the cover of Newsweek as the candidate to beat. Former pizza CEO! It sure looked like America was headed for an extremely painful procedure, wasn’t it?

But then a few days later, after you’ve spent several sleepless nights tossing and turning over your fate, you get a call from your dentist. He forgot to tell you: they’re going to knock you out for all of it. You won’t feel a thing. And painkillers being what they are these days, you’ll be right as rain within 24 hours.

For me, that brow-wiping ‘wheeeeeeeeeeew’ moment was the poll, one of the first after Cain and Perry and Bachmann had risen and fallen in the ratings like the figures on a merry go round (only if those figures were stupid clowns instead of the usual beautiful horses), that showed Newt Gingrich in first place. NEWT GINGRICH! FIRST PLACE! Good God, this man once impeached a president for infidelity while cheating on his second wife with a woman who ended up becoming his third wife, and later explained his extramarital affairs by saying that they were “partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country.” Yes! And he was in first place to be the Republican candidate for president! I had been almost scared to laugh at the primaries up to this point, like meeting a guy at a party who keeps nonsensically rambling about Clarence Thomas, only you don’t laugh because you can’t tell if he’s joking or drunk. But now Newt Gingrich was in first place! Turns out that guy was drunk and joking! Commence laughter!**

In a gold-in-the-sand kind of way, or perhaps in a we’ll-knock-you-out-for-the-entire-procedure kind of way, that subtle change in viewing the GOP primaries completely transforms the experience from frightening to hilarious. Once you don’t have to worry about finding a house in Canada (my personal Bachmann contingency plan), you can enjoy these video compilations of classic Bachmann quotes (complete with music!) and laugh at the complete absurdity of the existence of ‘classic Bachmann quotes.’ Once you don’t have to watch professional people seriously debate the 9-9-9 tax plan, you can enjoy the ceaseless stream of ridiculousness that is Herman Cain. Once Rick Santorum wins second place in the Iowa caucuses and opens the door to all sorts of Twitter-ready remarks about how Santorum is being spread in Iowa, it’s nothing but joy.

The man loves to get some tail.

I loved these primaries. From a comedy standpoint, there really was nothing better. How can you not love a primary campaign that spawned a website devoted to showcasing animals with Newt Gingrich?

Unfortunately, it looks like we’re going to be stuck with Romney vs. Obama for the next few months, two rational, intelligent, and capable men locked in learned debate. Being the heinous renegade monk that I am, I don’t really know what ‘learned debate’ means, but I’m guessing there will be fewer Pokemon quotes involved. I don’t know what I’m going to do for reality TV entertainment. I mean, maybe you can sit through an episode of the Steven Tyler American Idol, but I certainly can’t. But then again, you’re probably a better person than I am, as evidenced by the fact that you’re not currently on the lam from a cadre of cyborg zombie ninjas.

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*Much like the cinematography of Wayne’s World 2.
**And the systematic destruction of any shred of decency that remained in Fran’s.

Point/Counterpoint: Peanut Butter Patties vs. Tagalongs

POINT: Peanut Butter Patties are the real motherfucking deal

The only thing more delicious than a Peanut Butter Patty is two Peanut Butter Patties, served by Natalie Portman

So there’s this astoundingly delicious and delectable dessert that I freaking love. It is affectionately known as the “Peanut Butter Patty” among its admirers, and the scrumptious power of this cookie cannot be underestimated. Astute Americans from New York to California salivate worse than an adolescent female at the opening of Never Say Never 3D merely at the thought of wrapping one’s lips around a Peanut Butter Patty and sinking into its ludicrously luscious interior. The interplay between chocolate, peanut butter, and cookie is titillating to say the least, and exquisitely heavenly at best. Needless to say, Peanut Butter Patties are pretty gosh-darn fucking amazing.

Yet there are still a few ignorant Americans who deny the orgasmically divine existence of Peanut Butter Patties. I’m speaking, of course, of my ignorant, dimwitted, and deliciousness-denying colleagues on the far-left who insist, against all reason or logic, that we should instead direct all of our yummy praise at “Tagalongs.” Can you believe that shit!? These Tagalong dirtbags are robbing America of its culinary identity, reducing the simple elegance of the Peanut Butter Patty to a name better reserved for that kid you met once during Wildcat Welcome week, yet who still insists on texting you every weekend to find out about parties. Without the Peanut Butter Patty, what have we become as a nation? Lose this symbol of American piquant pleasure, and risk losing all that we’ve accomplished as a nation of trans-fats consumers? Nice try you Neo-Nazi Communist Anarchist Soccer-playing Tagalongites, but I love this glorious nation far too much to sit idly by while you destroy one of the greatest examples of our national pride.

by Evander Jones

COUNTERPOINT: Tagalongs: The Life-Blood of our American Existence

What's more American than Dairy Queen? Nothing, except Tagalongs.

I want you to envision something wonderful for me. Picture a cookie. This isn’t just any cookie: it’s a mound of creamy peanut butter encapsulated in a shell of smooth, tantalizing chocolate. Now picture yourself gently slipping this 12 gram stone of delight from the plastic package that has served as a gentle and loving home. You caress its smooth edges with your shaking fingertips and hold it in your hand as the light but arousing scent of chocolate and peanut butter wafts towards your welcoming nostrils. You place the cookie in your salivating mouth and take a bite. You swirl your excited tongue as bits of chocolate and peanut butter meld forming the perfect symphony of sweet and salty. The pleasure is so intense that you let out a soft moan. Finally, you swallow the last bite of this titillating treat and sit back in satisfaction.

Ladies and gentlemen, you have just eaten a Tagalong.

Now, there are some small-minded people out there who will tell you that the proper name for this moan-inducing dessert that we have come to love is “Peanut Butter Patty.” I can assure, you that this is fascist propaganda. In 1921, the young Benito Mussolini brainwashed Troop 246 of the Girl Scouts of the USA into telling their fellow Americans that the cookies were known as “Peanut Butter Patties.” (Fun fact: Mussolini played the violin.) Il Duce did this in an attempt to divide Americans to the extent that civil war would distract the nation from beating the shit out of him in World War II. So let us end the right wing madness that begot this nation’s confusion over the name of a Girl Scout cookie. This debate has consumed America more than abortion and Arcade Fire’s GRAMMY win combined. They are called Tagalongs. Now. Forever. Now, in the name of Juliette Gordon Lowe, can we all just get back to our lives?

by Blaise Bernard