If you’re a certain variety of geek, then cryptic polysyllables like Nyarlathotep, Yog-Sothoth, and Shub-Niggurath will have a significance for you outside of bringing to mind Native American-titled hamlets scattered throughout Southern New York or the sound of violent hay fever.

You’ll know them as key cognomens in the works of author H.P. Lovecraft, the celebrated fantasy writer who dreamed up not only a new form of horror, but a mind-bending cosmogony chronicling humankind’s infinitesimal place in the universe. I’ve long contended that if Creationism — which only raises more questions than it answers — is taught in schools, then Lovecraft’s collective Cthulhu Mythos should be part of the curriculum as well. In this cosmic horror, the earth began as but a petri dish for great, protoplasmic gods who fell from the stars, dwelt in imposing temples, engineered lesser forms of life (man decidedly not being born in their images), and ultimately abandoned it — or were banished from it — for far-flung gulfs in space.

I wonder if H.P. — who died unknown and flat-busted — could even begin to comprehend the loony array of public domain merchandise his life’s work has inspired; not only can you have titles like At The Mountains of Madness, The Dunwich Horror, and The Doom That Came To Sarnath populating your book and DVD shelves, but his stamp appears in comics, action figures, role-playing games, plush toys, water bottles, t-shirts, posters, bedroom slippers (!), and most recently…

…a 13” hand-crafted silicone dildo… (read the full article)

Hi, I’m Baby Billy.

Life doesn’t begin at conception, people — it starts the moment you realize the kind of dicktardery you’ve dropped out into. Look at my face. This is my first of what I’m sure will be many what-the-fuck? expressions. The Japanese call it Nensha, the psychological etching of an image into the material world. This look — like this family photo of me with my Mommy and Daddy appropriately found at Awkward Family Photos — has set the tone and will follow me forever, or at least the next eighteen years.

Don’t get me wrong — I love Mommy, but she only just got her braces removed last month, and she hasn’t passed Algebra/Trig yet. By the time I start to talk, we’ll be fighting over the Wii like we’re siblings. She’ll call me a broken condom kid, and I’ll say she’s a bitch.

And Dad. What am I supposed to do with this douche? With all the body bronzer and that Chelsea Boy haircut, he looks like he just strayed in from Kristien Bjorn porn set. I should be the star of this family photo, but no, Dad had to body wax, rouge his nips, and then make them all tweaky with ice — from the sodie in my sippy cup! That dick!

How can I help looking pale and pudgy after he spent ten minutes doing push-ups before this photo op and wore his new 2(x)ist briefs with the waist band casually hiked up over the waist of his Abercrombie jeans?

Oy, how long ’til nap time? I gots the sads now.

His name is unknown to us.

His realm lies somewhere East of Shangri-La and West of Oz.

We’ll just call him Tony from Massapequa.

Tony from Massapequa put a great deal of thought into his senior year photo. It had to be memorable. Distinct. A visual paean to his unearthly august. And it is.

Sure, he could have spent the year reading Frankenstein or Of Mice & Men for English Lit, but Tony had real priorities. When he wasn’t waxing his Camaro or basting himself in body bronzer, he was at the gym blasting his delts and triceps to the sounds of Eminem and Linkin Park. (read the full article)

No, we didn’t use Photoshop on this picture.

That really is John Wayne — in hot pants.

John Wayne, who was for generations the archetype of rugged cowboy manhood. Broad shouldered. Self-contained. All pensive, wounded looks and a slow-to-anger, two-fisted approach to solving problems.

During the late days of the American Empire, he was “the ugly American” as photogenic movie star, a world conqueror with shameful face, at home as much on the Sagebush Trail as on the Sands of Iwo Jima — two typically iconic titles of his America-Myth building movies.

And yet, there he is, at right, in a not-ready-for-icon-worship private moment.

Exactly how many things are blowing our mind about this photo? Let us count the ways. Not merely the super-tight hot pants, but the super-tight hot pants with the cowboy hat.

Then there’s the little issue about the man-bag — man-bag! — oxygen, please. This is 1952! That’s when the photo was taken, in Acapulco. Not even the dizziest bottle-blonde chorusboy, staggering about drunkenly on a gay holiday in Capri, French poodle in beach bag, would be this gay or this proud. (read the full article)