Cat: What is it?

Rimmer: It’s a rent in the space-time continuum.

Cat: What is it?

Lister: The stasis room preserves time and it must of leaked, and whatever leaked into it leads to this room.

Cat: What is it?

Rimmer: Ummm, it’s a singularity, a point in space and time where the normal rules of reality don’t apply.

Cat: What is it?

Lister: It’s a magic door.

Cat: Oh, a magic door. Why didn’t you say?

Oy.  Just: Oy.

And I’m not even from New York!

That’s how bad it sucks.  It makes me use Noo Yawk idioms.

Damn that’s some privileged white boys.

Oh, and your boy looks just like you?

Congratulations:  You’re (probably) not a cuckold!

This is almost like Tipper Gore slapping an “explicit lyrics” sticker on that Frank Zappa instrumental album.

It takes serious guts to put the tomb of a pagan god-king on your list of (presumably) Christian miracles.

ICP is Christian!!  Hmm, actually, given that all I know about them is that they are intensely mysogynist, that’s not too surprising.  Still, don’t they talk about sex a lot?  And isn’t the brand of Christianity that thinks pets are miracles (seriously?) pretty much anti-sex?

Honestly I saw this video and thought it was making fun of people who think magnets are miracles.  I guess I couldn’t comprehend the depths of ignorance some are happy to wallow in.

For those of you who can’t bring yourself to watch the video, here’s the spit-out-your-coffee moment:

Water, fire, air and dirt
Fucking magnets, how do they work?
And I don’t wanna talk to a scientist
Y’all motherfuckers lying, and getting me pissed

I can totally understand being scientifically uncurious. Personally, I really have no desire to know how a microwave oven is able to cook a potato in 6 minutes, or the specific physics involved in space exploration. I understand that there is science behind it, and it’s pretty cool from the sense that there are these set mathematical rules that are unified and govern the whole universe…

But it’s another thing entirely to say “OMG it’s like, no one can possibly understand how microwaves really work, it’s magical!”

I mean, that’s like deciding how long to cook the potato for using numerology…. If you assign the letters of potato their numerological numbers and add them up, you get 87. If you add 8 and 7 together, you get 15. If you add 1 and 5 together, you get 6. SIX MINUTES. Which is how long you’re supposed to cook a large potato for. Coincidence? I think not.

I, um…what?  ICP is a Christian act?  Seriously?  The guys who did the clown-oriented Hustler spread and are responsible for such magna opera as “Chicken Huntin’” and “Bugz on my Nutz”?  When did that happen, and are we sure it’s not just an April Fool’s thing they neglected to take off their website on the 2nd?

... or, you could microwave the potato for 87 minutes, which I believe will open a gate and let a demon out.

carovee-they appear to be an off shoot of Frat Boy Christianity.  Where sex is used as a weapon, misogyny is rapant and the Madonna/Whore complex is in full swing.  Also related to the Good Ol’ Boys/Boys Will Be Boys sect.

I had a friend who was big into ICP in high school, so I heard quite a bit of their music. They do spend a lot of time denigrating southern racist rednecks including those who wave the confederate flag. I don’t think they are necessarily conservative, just pig-ignorant followers of some nebulous definition of “god”.

Ugh, disgusting.

Not just the ignorance, but wasting a great band name on this utter BS christian rap shit.

Insane Clown Posse is a great band name, one deserving of an actually decent band, instead of a duet of proudly ignorant frat boys.

@LynstHolin

You forgot “There’s magic all up in this bitch!” Hubby and I have been walking around saying that at random for the past couple of days.  Hasn’t gotten old yet. Probably will soon, though.

Relatedly: ICP still has fans? Really?

I’ve watched it five times now and my office mates all think I’m insane because I keep laughing so hard.

I think it’s satire. These guys have made a shitload of money telling really, really stupid people just what they want to hear. They’re too good at what they do to be this dumb.

But it’s another thing entirely to say “OMG it’s like, no one can possibly understand how microwaves really work, it’s magical!”

Arthur C. Clarke famously said “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” One of the main problems we face in our society is that our public education system has rendered basic, well-established technology concepts like radio waves as “sufficiently advanced” for a large portion of high school graduates.

And I don’t wanna talk to a scientist
Y’all motherfuckers lying, and getting me pissed

Basically another way of saying “your big words confuse and frighten me, and since I’m paranoid I know you’re doing it on purpose. So I’ll respond by getting all aggro on you” It’s amazing how often you see adults (and not just rappers wearing clown makeup who might be having us on) taking this stance.

That is fucking hilarious.  And the cracked.com reply is even better. 

Those guys can’t seriously be that ignorant, though.  Really, they can’t be.  Please say they can’t be?  It has to be satire (I hadn’t heard of ICP before now, though, so I really can’t say).  Even the fundamentalist christians I know (and I know plenty) aren’t *that* intentionally stupid.

The music is painfully bad, and distracts from the video’s objectionable message.

Mighty Ponygirl: the thing is, there’s I-don’t-care-to-know-the-details-of-everything uncurious, and then there’s na-na-na-na-my-fingers-are-in-my-ears-you-can’t-tell-me-what-to-think uncurious.  There isn’t a (sane) scientist in the world who will try to tell you you should know how absolutely everything works; as a society, we know too much about too many things for people to spend their time learning that much detail.  So long as you’re interested enough in science to have a baseline of ‘scientifically reasonable’ and ‘scientifically sounds like bs’, you’re not so much curious as selective.  And so long as someone rejects learning anything scientifically based at all, I think the better word for them is closed-minded.

On a semi-related note, I think it’s not good tactics to use “Christian” without modifiers in the way that it’s used in this post.

I generally use “Xtian” or “Xtian fantasist” to distinguish the authoritarian and fundamentalist political/cultural expression of the religion. Some people also use “Christianist,” an analogous term to “Islamist” (as opposed to “Islamic” or “Muslim”).

On a related note (and not to de-rail into a discussion of NYC bike lanes and such), I just read an interview where the subject characterised Brookln Orthodox Jews who oppose riding bicycles as “Talibanowitz Rabbis.” Which sums up the mentality nicely for the oldest of the three Abrahamic religions.

Norbizness, have ever noticed how you always see those explicit lyrics warnings (at Amazon, anyway, which is pretty much the only place I buy music anyway now that I’m out of the city) seem to pop up on every damn group of color’s album, and yet over and over you see white acts that are chock full of, well words we would *never* use at Pandagon, get off label free?

Actually, a lot of ICP lyrics are about their own made-up dark clown mythology, sometimes tongue-in-cheek, sometimes to inflate their badassness.  I had one of their albums (I bought it when Disney started recalling copies after discovering how unwholesome they were), and it had all sorts of songs about voodoo, dark magic, some sort of prophecies about dark clown gods and the apocalypse.  Then, at the end, a drippy maudlin song about how they’ll see all their friends up in heaven.  I think this Miracles songs is one of those, trying to show that they’re really not bad guys, they have feelings, they believe in God and shit, to try to appeal with their fanbase in a different way.

#17

They’re not the same, they’re not even closely related, but they occupy very similar niches (medium-sized berserker predator/large oceanic filter-feeder/aggressive anti-intellectual) and so, thanks to convergent evolution, have independently developed very similar traits.

Exactly.

I don’t think the Insane Clown Posse are really a “Christian” group in any very meaningful sense. They may sound a lot like conservative frat boy Christians, but, ultimately, they are just what their name says they are: insane clowns.

Samantha: I accidentally downloaded the clean version of NWA’s Greatest Hits, which was a whole comedy series unto itself. What I want is an “objectionable twee whistling and/or cry-singing” label so I can avoid a certain class of bands who tend to have their music appear in life insurance commercials.

I think it follows that any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.  Gives me something to shoot for, anyway.

Clarke has that covered in his second law: “The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.”

The first law, for reference: “When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.”

Huh, there does seem to be genuine controversy over whether ICP is Christian.  An admittedly quick google search failed to find any post or interview where they self-identify as Christian.  Now, as a gift to myself, I will purge my mind of all knowledge of ICP.

there are these set mathematical rules that are unified and govern the whole universe…

Just a nitpick. Math is a tool used to describe things. For example, gravity is a force that we use math to model. A lot of people confuse the model with the real thing, particularly when you get into physics. It’s easier to see that we’re describing systems in a field like biology, and not, say, plucking equations fully formed from the Library of Babel.

Also, magnets aren’t the only thing we scientists are lying to you about. Muahahaha!

@Norbizness On the twee “indie” songs: you and me both, kid. A scrubbed up version of NWA’s greatest hits? Eh, $8.99 of comedy gold, but it’s got to be hard on the ears. And the soul. The magic soul.

The world is full of dumb people, but some of them are on our side.  Yeah, the ICP and their fans are painfully stupid.  But I think their politics lean more left than right.  Their demographic is young white people who weren’t very good at school, who take drugs.  (Surely you remember these kinds of kids from high school, even if it was before the Insance Clown Posse.)  So, yeah, they don’t want to hear a scientist explain how magnets work, because they wouldn’t understand it anyway.  But they’re definitely not aligned with Christian conservatives.

What I found odd in light of the “don’t wanna talk to a scientist” business is that the video is chock-full of scientific imagery, particularly the astronomical observatory on top of the rising Tower of Babel or whatever that thing is supposed to be.  I think the one and only reason the lyricist was “pissed” at those “mothafuckin” scientists is simply because he needed a quick cheap rhyme for the word “scientist.”

I seem to remember some interview w/ICP where they were shocked to find that people were taking them seriously and one of them said “Really? We’re fucking wearing CLOWN MAKEUP. We’re fucking clowns. Why would anyone take ANYTHING we said seriously?”

Reminds me of a novel called “The Man who was Thursday”. In the book there is an anarchist who is trying to hide that he is an anarchist because in London around the time it was written anarchists were all paramilitary members (according to the introduction). Anyway the anarchist tries various ruses like he pretends to be a banker along with other capitalist jobs. The problem is everyone says, “you aren’t a banker you’re a goddamn anarchist” because his best imitation of the selected profession is too honest. The video is like that. They have to think anyone who is going to sing along to that unironically must be a fucking moron. I mean come on, the bit where they are going on about the birth of kids being a miracle with the spread legged woman in the foreground has to be satire. They ride a giant dick for most of the video and in the end it ejaculates. Its obviously what they think the idiots want to hear and its unintentional parody. 

Just to be clear, I’m not a fan and this is the only song of theirs I’m aware of.

No True Scotsman, Cminus.

That video is like something you would expect to see in the future of the Idiocracy universe.

That video is like something you would expect to see in the future of the Idiocracy universe.

I’d buy that for a dollar!

Amanda, I’m no ICP fan, but the song doesn’t sound serious and you shouldn’t dig too deep into it.  It’s just two white rappers making a crazy song.

cminus @17:
The middle of your second para. is hylarious.  I hope that was the reaction intended.

Okay, if the ICP aren’t Christian, they’re monotheists that believe in the concept of sin, a fiery hell that will punish sinners, and an eternal heaven where all the dead will reunite so long as they lived righteously.

“Theologically inconsistent Christians” is probably a better label, but Christian works for short, especially since I’d call most Jesus-worshipers theologically inconsistent too.

I think it would be better to say that ICP are a couple of hacks who are desperately trying to stay relevant in a world growing weary with the shock tactics that made them “stars” (albeit to a fairly small segment of society). 

They’re just trying to sell records.

I’m sorry, we’re supposed to worry about the opinions of a group called Insane Clown Posse?  Really?

cminus, if I provided a thorough taxonomy of bullshit in every blog post about bullshit, each one would be book length and unreadable.

I prefer the current system of assuming that my audience understands the culture they live in.  I will also reject future requests that I footnote allusions, like my audience is composed of freshmen reading Shakespeare and need the cultural references to bear-baiting explicated to them.

Also, magnets aren’t the only thing we scientists are lying to you about. Muahahaha!

Just don’t tell them about the gnomish overlords and their earthquake-causing machines.  You’ll never be able to set foot in a tastelessly decorated yard again, if you spill the beans on that one.

the cultural references to bear-baiting

To be fair, Conan’s off the air now.  /wry

“Okay, if the ICP aren’t Christian, they’re monotheists that believe in the concept of sin, a fiery hell that will punish sinners, and an eternal heaven where all the dead will reunite so long as they lived righteously.”

...there is a huge, enormous gulf between a band composed of members who happen to be or identify as Christian (along with the vast majority of the rest of the country) and a Christian band.  Hell, even a band where the individual members personally identify as agnostic or atheist might wind up going back to that sort of imagery in pop art, since it permeates the culture most of us grew up in and the concepts at their most basic sink pretty deep hooks into the baser emotional instincts.

But it’s another thing entirely to say “OMG it’s like, no one can possibly understand how microwaves really work, it’s magical!”

See, if you’re going to be that willfully ignorant, I don’t think you should be allowed to use the magic tools.

I can’t fix my car.  I know, from experience, that the serpentine belt is making a funny noise.  I know, from past experience, that the serpentine belt winds around the engine.  I know, from past experience that it will cost $250-500 to fix it.

I do not know how to put the serpentine belt on the car, or really very much about how to make a car. 

There are people trained in auto mechanics that can do that for me.  They can design better cars and engines in a way I never will, because I’ve never been trained nor cared to be trained in auto mechanics.

But just b/c I don’t understand how to create/fix something doesn’t mean that I don’t understand that the knowledge exists and that other humans can learn and use and further that knowledge.

But assholes who deny science entirely just shouldn’t be allowed to use the products created by science.  Yup, no TV or radio for you losers!  No electric lights or horseless carriages!  Pray to your God to provide.

————-
Sorry, cminus, but I don’t think people should have to qualify “Christian” anymore. 

The loudmouths have used it as a cudgel to insist on every form of ignorant bigotry.  The ones who actually believe in a loving Jesus who said to care for the sick, poor, and imprisoned?  Who said to turn the other cheek?  Who said to love your enemies?  Who said hypocrites have already received their rewards?

They need to step up and shut up the bigots.  No more rolling your eyes in silence.  “Christian values” has become a synonym for hate, and it’s up to the ‘good’ Christians to take their name back.  Cause right now, anyone who talks about “Christian values” means hating women and LGBTQI. 

I think it’s a better tactic, b/c when the “good” Christians pipe up, you can remind them that they’ve been too quiet for too long, and if they don’t think Christ taught hate, they need to get that message out there.

But since there does seem to be some confusion about what the term “Christian rock” means—-and that was, if you’ll check, the only time the bait word “Christian” comes up—-I’ll explicate.

Christian rock: music made by talentless morons for tasteless imbeciles that uses evangelical Christian tropes as an excuse for existing.

If you think this doesn’t qualify, you’re an extreme hair-splitter that uses the art to confuse instead of clarify.

@Ferox, they’ve made it clear they don’t attend church, so there’s some room for doubt in that area.
@Caren @50, you know as a “good” American, you’ve waited too long to pipe up, so you yourself are personally responsible for what messages are out there about Americans. Get back to me when you’ve got that all that messy stuff ironed out.

But they’re definitely not aligned with Christian conservatives.

Sure, but a lot of movement conservatives are just on the “screw the smarty pants” train, and don’t think they need to go to church to justify it.

Count me among the people confused by ICP being a “Christian” band. I’ve only been exposed to a handful of their songs but even trying to sell a “Christian” message it seemed extremely on the opposite end of anything “Christian.”

“Oh yeah, you like beating the shit out of people? Well let me tell you about a guy who got the shit beat out of him—- JESUS. No, he wasn’t no p***y. He’s your Lord and Savior.”

I seem to remember some interview w/ICP where they were shocked to find that people were taking them seriously and one of them said “Really? We’re fucking wearing CLOWN MAKEUP. We’re fucking clowns. Why would anyone take ANYTHING we said seriously?”

Mark on 04/12 at 11:12 AM

Mark, that might’ve been the Bill O’Reilly interview back from the early oughts. I Youtubed it. The comment starts about 4:50.

Also, the two members are high school dropouts which might explain some of their ignorance.

I seem to remember some interview w/ICP where they were shocked to find that people were taking them seriously

Ah yes. I’ve heard they hide behind that, much in the way that Rush Limbaugh says he’s just joking when called out.

Caren—You mean like this?

I’m sorry, we’re supposed to worry about the opinions of a group called Insane Clown Posse? Really?

The mean asshole, proud to be ignorant contingent is what the Republican party is banking on for winning the 2010 elections.  I think this is a pretty good reflection of that attitude boiled down.  Also, why is it so wrong to have a laugh?

They seem to accept the role of DNA in genetics though as they have double helices spinning around while talking about how they’re kids look like them. That’s just one step away from believing in evolution.

Sure, but a lot of movement conservatives are just on the “screw the smarty pants” train, and don’t think they need to go to church to justify it.

But I mean that these people want abortion to be legal.  They drink and take drugs.  The band members, anyway (I don’t know about their fans), are opposed to racism and bigotry.  The song is a pot-headed meditation on butterflies, and lava and shit, and fucking UFO’s.  And fucking magnets, man.  And little Shaggy looks just like Shaggy.  But these guys are more like Detroit union members than Oklahoma church goers, and they’d probably vote Democrat if they took the time to register to vote.

ICP’s coming-out party as ‘Christian rappers’ is, in my mind, one of the greatest pranks of all time.  They spent ten years building up a fanbase whose single-minded devotion to ICP’s brand of gore-and-sex-drenched music makes the Parrotheads look like fair-weather fans, only to turn it around on them and say ‘Ha-ha, fooled all of you, all those songs about cannibalism and anal sex and such were about helping you find GOD.’

And the vast majority of the fanbase STAYED.

As unlistenable as most of ICP’s music is, that’s some kind of magic act right there.

Dear gawd, ICP is still around? I remember walking past droves of crotch grabbing Juggalos in the early 90’s when the band would roll into town and stink up the local music hall. I still have the same thought too, “Calm the fuck down, it’s not like KISS is here.” I lived close enough to the hall to be treated to a free concert due to the shitty soundproofing, and that’s the last time I unwillingly consumed any of their “music”.

Pray to your God to provide.

y’know, some of these folks with their ‘prosperity gospel’ and such seem to think that old Janis Joplin Mercedes Benz song is unironic…. sigh…

If random AV Club commenters are to be believed:

” They kinda are Christian. At one point they released a song revealing that all their works have been an effort to bring their fans to God. The song even features the lines “We’re not sorry that we tricked you!”“

http://www.avclub.com/articles/great-job-internet-insane-clown-posse-rainbows-fuc,39928/

This also exists:
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=juggalofaith.com&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&aqi;=&aql=f&oq=juggalofaith.com&gs;_rfai=&fp=a2bb30ecf4f91972

Water, fire, air, and dirt

What, they’re rejecting elemental chemistry now?  I jest, but it can only be a matter of time.

Great post and comments! Always the best comments section in the miraculous fucking insane universe.  I don’t know if they’re Christian or Xtian or even human for sure. I think they’re the last and not the former two. They are a mixed bag for sure.  Shocking for shock’s sake and making a buck’s sake.

The former acid-dropping maryjane lover in now-old-me really enjoyed the video’s trying to drive the point home that life is miraculous, which is the most understated aspect of our experience of our existences, I think. But when they got to the ignorant / superstitious / adolescent-rebellious / confrontational/ pointless smart-ass stanza about ‘lying scientists pissing them off’, it was so discordant that it harshed my mellow.

In my mind,  I distilled it down to their stupidly not wanting to be told by anyone including science what to believe about global warming actually and for instance. That they made their ‘statement’ in such an ignorant-Republican-fundie way is disheartening, but I think that’s really just where their “art” takes them sometimes, the same way it takes them to crude misogyny and unproductive profanity for the sake of dissent and CD sales and concert receipts. If I knew how to edit out that stanza from the video, and all the misogyny and other anger, I could watch it just for the buzz and laughs.

There is a discussion happening, on several of the feminist blogs I read, about ICP. 

...

There is a discussion happening, on several of the feminist blogs I read, about Insane Clown Posse.

I honestly thought I was having one of those weird but inane dreams in which you wake up (but really don’t) and start going through your daily routine, but then the routine takes a bizzare twist—like you’re reading your daily blogroll and several of the more feminist ones are having a discussion about ICP.

It’s not bad or anything, don’t get me wrong.  It was just surreal having just woken up.  Man with all the shit going on in the world right now getting the chance to point and laugh at some juggalos was kind of refreshing.

Despite how much easier it is to just lump everything you dislike into one convenient lump, just being stupid, inbred hicks doesn’t make someone a christian. To me this seems more like the philosophy of a couple of high school dropout stoners. Kind of like PM Dawn gone horribly, horribly wrong. Real christian rock is either earnest and respectful or the result of sublimated passion, like this:

http://www.gametrailers.com/user-movie/south-park-cartmans-christian/24590

Are you sure this isn’t some form of twisted performance art act along the lines of “how far can we actually take this”?  I would point out that the name of the group is in fact “Insane Clown Posse” and they do appear to be wearing clown makeup.

The overall effect is one where the people are decrying science using advanced technology but the people advancing this position are literally dressed as clowns.

Conservatives lay claim to moral superiority because of their ignorance, but apeing the knowledgeable they claim to despise demonstrates an underlying insecurity.

Interesting.  I was having a chat w/ my astronomy teacher & she was telling me about a book on Intelligent Design one of her creationist students had given her, & what struck her the most was how the thing was written: anyone w/ a background in science could immediately spot the gaping holes in how their arguments are constructed & how dishonestly the evidence is presented, but anyone else who might be unfamiliar or w/ only a cursory understanding of scientific methods could be easily filmflammed because they coach their anti-science rhetoric in “borrowed” scientific vocabulary, terminology & syntax.  Plainly put, they steal/poach/rip-off scientific language in a effort to discredit actual scientists, but to anyone who knows anything about what’s actually involved in science, the creationist pronouncements sound like word-salad.

The comments comparing them to Limbaugh and other big-money hustlers are probably right.  ICP is like Glenn Beck for teens, I think.  They’ve got a marketing industry that brings in millions of dollars a month and constantly upping the ante for shock value is all they can do. 

I love the “What, li’l old me capable of doing anything that might hurt the big ol’ world?  I’m just having a li’l bit of fun!” bullshit every single conservative/libertarian/christian asshole can spew when damage is obviously their intention.  It’s just the money.

Richard Goblin: Are you sure this isn’t some form of twisted performance art act along the lines of “how far can we actually take this”?

entrails:  ICP is like Glenn Beck for teens, I think.

It’s amazing just how compatible these two interpretations are.

...much in the way that Rush Limbaugh says he’s just joking when called out.

Which serves to both avoid assuming any responsibility or ownership for what you do/say & a very effective, backhanded way of saying “Fuck yourselves & get a sense of humour” w/o, y’know, actually saying it.  Because that would take guts.

Right-Wing: committing every crime that does not require courage.

Hey samanthab, I think I pipe up quite a bit.  Plus helping to elect Obama, even though he’s disappointed me, has done a hell of a lot to improve the reception of the American brand.

I’m just disagreeing with cminus on the tactic.  I don’t see the point of trying to tiptoe around “good” Christians.  Yes, the most prominent voices claiming to speak for all Christendom are hypocrites, but since they’re the ones screaming and spending money to change laws, they really are the brand now.

It’s like trying to differentiate Republicans from Teabaggers.  They’re the same thing.

As for good Catholics…god that’s a mess.  I really do know good people and good priests.  And I really don’t understand how a single one of them can stay when the Pope himself is complicit and has no intention of atoning in any meaningful way at all.

I suppose it does no harm to clarify we’re speaking of V2 deniers/Correctors or prosperity gosplers or Talibangelists (my favorite).  I just don’t think the “but they don’t speak for all christians” argument is worth much at all anymore.  That ship has sailed.

And to think I once thought nobody could suck more than Vanilla Ice.

Watching this video made me think of the kind of dumb people you run into at parties who also happen to be very high.

High guy: “Dude, dude. The universe man, its like a fuckin’ miracle. Like its so fuckin’ crazy, do you even think about that. Like magnets. Like how the fuck do those even work? thats so fuckin crazy”

Me: “Actually, we know how magnets work, you see…”

High Guy: “I don’t wanna talk to a scientist, Y’all motherfuckers lying, and getting me pissed”

This is giving me flashbacks to my ex who liked ICP. Meanwhile I kept mixing them up with the Bloodhound Gang. And occasionally saying, “hey, can we stop playing the song about murdering, murdering, murdering fun? Because yeah, the more you play this, the more I feel like…”

This made me giggle. It so smacks of “we had kids and we got sappy, plus we played with computer graphic programs a lot.”

Sarah Slean:

Faith can’t fill the dance hall
‘Cause her powers have declined
But at the beauty pageant
She will always take the prize.
Light, light. Easter White
Roll her in the dirt,
When it comes time for kneeling she’ll say ” You go first.”

(She also has some interesting comments in that song about science and existentialism)

This seems appropriate:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/insane-clown-posse-gets-ride-to-concert-from-mom,707/

Apologies if someone else posted this.

Hooray Sarcastro for Red Dwarf reference! Cat’s disinterest in science is a perfect example of this attitude.

“Calm the fuck down, it’s not like KISS is here.”

I actually did fall out of a chair laughing at that. Well, I started to, but I caught myself on the edge of the table.

Jesus H. Christ, those juggaloes are one pathetic squad of idiots.  Looking at the site was painful: stupid burns all over the cortex.

at least there’s one band out there who believes in science

“Science is real
From evolution to the Milky Way
I like the stories
About angels, unicorns and elves”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty33v7UYYbw

Or, for that matter The Galaxy Song.

I have to say that juggalo culture is somewhat lacking in interest to me—there’s only so much you can do with Faygo and greasepaint. But at least it’s social, however isolated and pathetic it is. But ever since I found out about ICP’s then-stealth religious message a few years ago I’ve kind of wondered what exactly is wrong with them; now I know. They’re musical scam artists, not much better than cult recruiters.

Which is a shame. It’d be nice if the sort of fans they attract could have a bit more… intellectual… role models to follow.

That music video was a nice bit of levity in an otherwise dull day, but it just proves what most people who knew about ICP learned from the start; just a pair of obnoxious imbeciles profiting off the tastelessness of their audience, consisting almost entirely of similar obnoxious idiots. I can’t see how racist and sexist hate can exist in a world where Juggalos can provide such a deserving target.

@ 14: Giving the Insane Clown Posse name to Slipknot would be quite fitting, and mightily piss off the ICP fanbase as a bonus. YMMV on Slipknot’s comparative merits, but they’ve never made me want to solder my eardrums shut yet.

YES, PREZNIT!

Sorry, I got excited because that is my three-year-old’s favorite CD, and it’s absolutely wonderful.  I’m recently introducing myself to the wide, wonderful world of straight reality via Dawkins at the moment, and I absolutely adore TMBG for having the courage to release an openly atheist (not anti-theist, but definitely atheist) children’s CD.

“I like them stories
About angels, unicorns, and elves, now
I like them stories
As much as anybody else, but
When I’m seeking knowledge
Either simple or abstract
The truth is with science;
The proof is with science,
Science is real!”

Or,

“A fact is just a fantasy unless it can be checked.”

It’s actually moving to me because I think we truly do not take the time to teach our kids about how singularly awesome *existence* is.  Science isn’t just real, it’s cool, and more kids need to be taught that reality is cool enough taken straight with no supplements.

And to think I once thought nobody could suck more than Vanilla Ice.

I read that Vanilla Ice is a fan of ICP. So he’s got his own suck plus the ICP suck at once, ergo he still sucks more.

That was the Vanilla Ice Absolute Suckitude Theorem.

While working at a record store in Denver around 2002-03, I met the guys from ICP and a couple of acts from their label.  ICP and their ‘artists’ were in and out of our store doing signings all the time.  To be fair, the two guys who make up ICP themselves actually seemed like halfway decent guys, but man, I still shudder when I think of working the store on a day that a Psychopathic Records band would be there.  Their fans are hands-down the biggest shitheads I ever had the displeasure of being around at that store, and we’re talking about Colfax Ave store that was open until midnight (1 AM on Mondays) and frequented by all manner of weirdos. 

One of their bands, Zug Izland, whose biggest claim to fame was their nu-metal cover of ‘Cry’ from the Lost Boys soundtrack (gag), had their suburbanite whiteboy fans wrapped around the block, painted in clown makeup, wearing cartoonish exaggerations of black fashion, and all of them chucking bottles and cans of Faygo at our building.  Faygo isn’t available in CO, or at least it wasn’t at the time, so some enterprising soul had brought a truckload to the event and was charging 5-10 bucks a bottle for the stuff, and then the fuckers would proceed to douse the building with it.  The band themselves were the most condescending awful rock asshole stereotypes I’ve ever met, and that’s saying something with the number of acts we had in and out of there. 

After spending a day mistreating us staff members while their fans fucked up our store, the band invited us all back to their hotel to party with them.  Every single employee turned them down.  I was never prouder to be a music store snob than I was at that moment.  Since then, seeing anything ICP related on a person’s car, or shirt, or even worse, tattooed on their person has been the equivalent of seeing a brightly-colored poisonous caterpillar.  “STAY AWAY!  I HAS THE DUMB!”

@ 66:

What, they’re rejecting elemental chemistry now?  I jest, but it can only be a matter of time.

I smell opportunity.  If they’re rejecting chemistry, it is only a matter of time until they are open to accepting alchemy.

It seems that the “buy gold now” commercials are endemic in wingnut media.  I don’t know about you, but I missed that boat on getting rich off crazy wingnuts - I should have stocked up on gold futures back in 2007 - but there may be opportunity to make up for lost time.

Yes, a do-it-yourself alchemy kit.  Turn lead or aluminum or whatever you have laying around into GOLD.  Then you’ll be protected against the next financial apocalypse.  Plus, you’ll be rich.  Only $39.99 plus shipping and handling.

Yup, cut a quick, low budget commercial, buy up air time on Bill O’Reilly, Glen Beck, and Sean Hannity, and make a mint.

If you cut Beck in on the proceeds, I’m sure he’ll endorse it.

Pharmakon@36 compares ICP to G.K. Chesteron FTW.  No question that the people who post at Chesterton fansites would like ICP’s anti-intellectual crap.

I’m not convinced the song represents any sort of coherent ideological (or theological) statement. It’s just a peculiar kind of folk song about the mystery of life, the universe, and everything. The folk culture is that of the white working class of rust-belt cities. ICP use the term “miracle” in the most imprecise way (mostly in the sense of “wonder” or “mystery”).

I enjoyed the song (the only way I could take in something like that—in an elitist, ironic, patronizing fashion) up until the slap at science. It’s hard to know how seriously to take that, however. Maybe the song is veiled Christian fundamentalism—the strongest evidence for that the statement that scientists are lying—but maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s just a lazy deployment in of an meme kicking around the blighted streets of Detroit. Maybe ICP are just appealing to an old romantic poetic trope: science and scientific explanation as a destroyer of sweet, beautiful mystery. Maybe not your thing, but no big deal.